Heart's new album, 'Brigade,' is being billed as a return to the band's roots in the Seventies, when the Wilson sisters produced some of the only American prog-rock tunes – "Magic Man," "Barracuda" and "Crazy on You" – that have stood up to the British competition. Considering that the role of the female vocalist has lately been reduced to either overchoreographed aerobics (Madonna, Paula, Janet) or fashionably lefty folk warbling (Tracy, Edie, Natalie), it would have been nice to hear Ann Wilson's post-Janis Joplin/pre-Alannah Myles war whoop updated in a Nineties context.

Alas, all Brigade offers is the updated context – that is, Richie Zito's airy, sickly sweet production, which leaves a sour aftertaste. Of course, this is the type of AOR-for-the-LCD sound that enabled Heart to survive the Eighties and become such an unusual success story. Thus Heart's "return to roots" has occurred within the confines of an established hitmaking formula and merely pastes exotic textures (Nancy Wilson's Dobro, mandolin and blues harp) onto generic soft rock.

Classic Heart swung between metal and mellow with the same savvy as Tull or Yes, but new songs like "The Night" and "Fallen From Grace" (both written with Sammy Hagar) are predictable power(less) ballads. Same goes for the first single, "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You," which was written with Mutt Lange, and "Cruel Nights" and "I Didn't Want to Need You," the two songs written by schlockmeister Diane Warren. Indeed, of the thirteen tracks, only the three rockers ("Wild Child," "Tall, Dark Handsome Stranger" and "Call of the Wild") have any guts or charm. The rest are placebos calculated to reach as many people as possible – original Heart fans who are now thirty-something and their kids – and to have no discernible effect. (RS 581)

BOB MACK