For artists who came of age in the Eighties, the Nineties are the decade of reinvention. U2 has dropped the pomp and let its hair down, R.E.M. has come out of ambiguity, and even Julian Cope has added a dance element to his arty and remote sensibility. What is Howard Jones – a man whose records went platinum in the mid-Eighties on the power of the synthesizer – to do? Unplug himself, of course, and play piano – a strategy that served him well on "No One Is to Blame," from 1986.

The trouble is, In the Running – Jones's first album in three years – still sounds old-fashioned and artificial. Despite lots of lovely keyboard tinkling and percussion, it sounds as if it might have been recorded ten years ago. While the synthesizer excused the simple sentimentality of his early hits like "What Is Love?" (from Human's Lib, 1984) and "Things Can Only Get Better" (from Dream Into Action, 1985), the organic nature of the music on In the Running pushes the lyrics up front. Alas, on the first single, "Lift Me Up," Jones strains his voice to sing the likes of "This is a man who has lost control/Lost the road to a higher soul/Stop me from fallin' you know I need you."

If Jones once wrote catchy pop songs, he's now drifting into intricate orchestration, slick production and melodrama. Maybe his reinvention is not yet complete. (RS 630)

CHRISTIAN WRIGHT