And she has Tom Cochrane to thank for that.

While opening for the Canadian rocker on his acoustic tour three years ago, the bubbly singer developed a huge crush on Cochrane's guitarist Bill Bell.

"He was just a glorious, glorious human being," gushes MacLean, in town to promote her new sophomore CD, Passenger, which is released on Tuesday.

"So smart, so beautiful, I thought there was no way he'd ever go for me.

"Sure enough, he was just as smitten as I was."

The two were married a year and a half ago, and in true newlywed fashion, they rarely spend a moment apart.

In addition to co-producing the album, Bell also accompanies his wife on the road as a guitar player.

"Honestly, my life would be so much different if he wasn't on the road with me," she says.

"We have a ball, it's so much fun. Except that he gets to sleep in while I do all the interviews."

It's evident when she performs at the Vicious Circle that evening that, in the three years since her debut CD, Silence, MacLean has become more confident as a performer and a more self-assured lyricist and singer.

The slim, streaky blond haired singer, however, doesn't see much difference between the old and new MacLean.

"It's sort of like when you look at your face in a mirror," she says.

"You look the same as you did 10 years ago to yourself because you see yourself everyday.

"That's what it's like with my lyrics.

"I sing them everyday, so they don't seem immature to me or young. But a lot of people have told me that I've changed a lot or that I've grown up. But I don't see it.

"To me it seems normal."

With Passenger, MacLean hopes to shake off any clingy comparisons to Nettwerk labelmate Sarah McLachlan that dogged her when Silence came out.

MacLean's sweetly smooth angelic vocals soaring above lushly orchestrated and slightly trippy pop songs -- and the mere fact she stood on a Lilith Fair stage made her an easy target for McLachlan comparisons.

"It got pretty mean sometimes," recalls MacLean, who now resides in Los Angeles.

"There were a few times when the press were really, really cruel about it.

"They'd say I was trying so hard to copy her and stuff like that.

"It hurt because I wasn't used to having bad things said about me.

"It only hurt for a minute, though, and then I got over it."

MacLean also got over the initial fright of sharing the stage with established female artists like McLachlan, Sinead O'Connor, Paula Cole and Sheryl Crow during the Lilith Fair tours.

"It was scary at the beginning," MacLean recalls.

"Because before each show there was a press conference, which was really, really intimidating.

"I sat there with Sinead O'Connor and Sarah and watched them answer questions so eloquently because they were so used to it.

"I didn't think anyone would want to ask me anything, but they did and after a while I got really comfortable there."