You would expect a record that is the brainchild of a pair of producers to succeed more on technical grounds than creative ones. True to form, the latest "concept" album by the Alan Parsons Project founders miserably in its own overearnest art-rock poetasting. It sounds a lot better than it scans: "Producer" Parsons and his "executive producer," Eric Woolfson, have crafted a set of songs, in their overseer role, that are texturally attractive and sonically impeccable (recall, Parsons engineered Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon). But it's merely a sonic soufflé, empty calories puffed full of hot air.

The concept this time, one surmises, has to do with the give and take, the infatuation and disillusion, of a romantic affair. Throughout, there's the sense that, blindly guided by ephemeral passions, we don't really know what the hell we're doing – hence, our final destination, the disorientation of Ammonia Avenue. It's not as onerous and misogynistic as earlier Parsons projects, but any pop song that rhymes reality with neutrality has two strikes against it: strike three is the subject matter of the song in question (titled "Dancing on a High Wire"): "The silver-plated hero meets the golden-hearted whore." Later, she's "the ivory madonna." Huh?

When Parsons and pals aren't recycling stock riff-rock maneuvers, they're making like insufferable wimps. Following the macho chest-beating of "One Good Reason" with the poor-me mewling of "Since the Last Goodbye" reveals a baffling inconsistency of viewpoint. If that isn't enough, they confound the issue with non sequiturs like this one, from Ammonia Avenue's title track: "Is there no sign of light as we stand in the darkness/Watching the sun arise?"

Faced with such an abundance of inconsequential confusion, I think I'd rather be on Electric Avenue. (RS 419)

PARKE PUTERBAUGH