Vega at Best When Her Band Jumps In

In 11 years, Suzanne Vega’s music has expanded far beyond its folk-inflected, coffeehouse roots, absorbing elements of world music, jazz, even industrial-style electronics. Yet for all the experimentation that’s infiltrated her repertoire, as a singer-songwriter she’s still prone to a confounding emotional remoteness; the feelings she describes in her lyrics often seem stronger than the feelings she conveys with her dry-ice smoky voice. At times this detachment works to her advantage, providing an intriguing contrast for some of the more adventurous music. At others it only drives home the arty conceits of her songs.

The most engaging moments of Vega’s two-hour show at the El Rey Theatre on Wednesday (which was taped for a PBS broadcast) arose from the shifting dynamics of the arrangements--jazzier interludes instigated by her four-piece band during “Fatman” and “Birthday,” the haunting industrial-folk of “Blood Makes Noise,” an a cappella rendition of Vega’s 1990 hit “Tom’s Diner,” with the audience acting as backing vocalists.

Whenever the focus shifted to Vega alone with her guitar, the restraint settled in again. Solo acoustic numbers such as “Small Blue Thing” and “Queen and the Soldier,” for all their lyrical pathos, were more assertive than impassioned. It’s a shame Vega can’t invest as much of herself in executing the music as she obviously does in writing it.