The idiosyncratic "Serenade" (Blue City Records) has drawn rave reviews as it has sold briskly for an indie release.

Where "Serenade" limned the noir side of New York City, the next venture will see Shadow's penetrating eye cast across America. Tentatively titled "Purple Plain," the CD will include songs about the lost American prairie, urban grit, small town murder, hard boiled cinema, Hollywood depravity and such figures as John Dillinger, Adolf Hitler, Charlie Parker, John Garfield and Roy Rogers.

Unlike most artists, Shadow's songs trade on hard, gritty images and unsentimental description. His CDs are as much post-modern novels as novel albums. As such, he is often compared to Lou Reed, early Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, among other rock poets.

" I don't try too hard to write about something. I wait till the subjects find me; then the work gets hard," said Shadow, who spent four years developing material for 'Plain.'

" It would be easy to make a list about things that define America," he said, speaking about the development of the forthcoming album, "but it would be unremarkable.

" America was defined for me in movies, the black and whites I grew up on in dark rooms as a kid. I see an old theater marquee in Missouri and I can see people watching newsreels of Dillinger in the 30s, while Hitler is marching overseas.

" I see what Charlie Parker might have seen while blowing his brains out on West 52nd Street. I see the ghost of the prairie outside ranch houses and strip malls on the outskirts of Chicago. I see the blood of immigrant laborers on the walls of a dank meat warehouse under a highway in Gotham. I see the Phaetons and fools of wild Hollywood, and I see women in hats touring the country on a Vistadome train through post-war America."

As his audience grows, Shadow is seeking a larger label to make critic Keith Hannaleck's prophesy for his debut album come true: "Allen Shadow gives a classic performance that will surely raise some eyebrows in the entertainment sector if his CD "King Kong Serenade" is marketed wisely."