"Cul-de-sac of desire/Is in itself/Destroying me," moans Bryan Ferry on his new album. Alas, his lament suits his career all too well. Bête Noire finds Ferry once again prowling the back alleys of love in search of sensation. What moves Ferry most, however, is not satisfaction but the exquisite pain of his need, which he delineates on song after song.

Ferry explores his highly cultivated emotions like an aristocrat whiling away the hours amid the exotic delights of his hothouse. It's almost touching how, even after fifteen years on the scene – first with Roxy Music and more recently as a solo artist – Ferry is still fascinated by the endless unfolding of his own feelings. For us, unfortunately, it's grown a bit tiresome.

To his credit, Ferry attempted to soup things up a bit on Bête Noire by collaborating with Patrick Leonard, who has produced and written songs with Madonna. No stranger to the needs of Eighties radio or the dance floor, Leonard pumped up the bottom of Ferry's characteristically textured, evocative arrangements. "Seven Deadly Sins" clips along with disco momentum, and extra percussion propels "The Right Stuff" and "Kiss and Tell." Strangulated solos by former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, who co-wrote "The Right Stuff" with Ferry, add just the right note of anguish to Ferry's tales from love's crypt.

Finally, however, Bête Noire is another step in Ferry's retreat from distinct songs into atmosphere and feel. This strategy can sometimes work wonderfully, as Fetty proved on the transcendent album Avalon, from Roxy Music. But as his voice sinks more deeply into the murky layers of his music, as his lyrics are reduced to a Morse code of refined despair and as his subjects recede in the mist, Ferry seems increasingly like Narcissus, enraptured by his own reflection in the pond – and the bottomless depths below. (RS 517)

ANTHONY DECURTIS