After five years and the loss of two band members, Badfinger returns from pop exile, not as the ghost of Beatles past but as a pair of singer/songwriters precariously balancing British pop-music intuition against the weight of American FM commercial dictums.

On Airwaves, survivors Joey Molland and Tom Evans understandably show the strain. For starters, they face the unenviable task of eclipsing such early Seventies successes as "Carry On Tomorrow," "No Matter What" and possibly the best album the Beatles never made, No Dice. They give it a good go, permitting themselves a short acoustic indulgence before stepping into the feisty "Look Out California."

But with the exception of "Love Is Gonna Come at Last" and "The Winner," two effervescent entries propelled by a choppy, John Lennon-like guitar, Airwaves suffers from a bad case of weak knees. Badfinger, when faced with the dilemma of pop versus pap, opts for an uneasy commercial compromise that renders even a forceful rocker like "Sympathy" impotent with a flaccid disco beat. Similarly, such dramatic ballads as "The Dreamer" and "Sail Away," for all their atmospheric high harmonies, are hurt by David Campbell's wimpy string arrangements and the dryly unimaginative production of David Malloy, an Eddie Rabbitt/Stella Parton veteran with no apparent feel for Anglo-American pop. (RS 290)

DAVID FRICKE