Ana Moura was a rock singer in her native Portugal before succumbing the lure of fado, a folk-music tradition related to American blues, Argentinean tango, Greek rembetika, and even more closely to Brazilian choro and Cape Verdean morna. Like its aforementioned cousins, fado originated on the wrong side of town. Black-clad shady ladies sang of romantic disappointments and life on the wild side. Although it is a poetry of despair, it is nonetheless sensuously melodic, as well as touchingly stoic, proud, and very adult. The slings of fortune are not met with cringing, but rather a sexy shrug. It has long since become somewhat gentrified but fado has retained all of its bittersweet passion and ability to break hearts, especially when interpreted by a vocalist of Ms. Moura's stature. Like the illustrious Amalia Rodrigues, her band is graced by the talents of composer-producer-arranger-guitarist Jorge Fernando, whose taste and elegance have fashioned a lush, string-driven acoustic setting for her luscious café-au-lait alto. Her soaring trills of ancient Moorish vintage rise above subterranean depths of grief and angst, seeming to pierce the very heavens with roundelays of indignant resignation. --Christina Roden