Feel Me is Leslie Smith’s homecoming record after the singer/songwriter evacuated New Orleans last August. Parts of it are a shockingly bold departure from her most recent work, which concentrated on her vocals and piano accompaniment in a classic Carole King mode. But for fans that know Smith from her early days playing Tyler’s Beer Garden on Magazine Street, Feel Me is familiar territory, a “documentation of where I come from musically.” Smith sought out Ivan Neville to produce the album and he put together a group featuring his own keyboard work, Tony Hall on bass and Raymond Weber on drums.

The title track is also the money cut, a frankly sexual seduction by Smith that goes all out with the steamy pillow talk. “Can you feel me?” she coos to the lusty beat, “touch yourself, then touch… me, look into my eyes… it’s okay now, just come inside.” Smith delivers this with the kind of confidence it took for her to run away at age 13 to become a street singer in San Francisco. The ballad “Build A Bridge” and the uptempo “Reaching Out” are closer to her more recent work, and by the time we reach “Just A Girl,” Smith is back in her recent comfort zone, accompanying herself on piano and backing vocals on this celebration of femininity.

Neville plays a monster synth funk figure behind another sex romp, the teasing “Please,” fashions a bed of handclaps for Smith’s sultry reading of “Baby Dance” and builds a wall of percussion behind the breathy rap “I Thought of You,” which is a less successful medium for Smith. Altogether, the album overcomes the threat to split into several jarring directions through Neville’s strong hand at the controls and the power of Smith’s songwriting vision in any genre.