Listening to Huey Lewis and the News is like eating hot dogs at the ballpark: They taste fine in context but don't encourage much thought about nutritional value. The Bay Area band rose to prominence in the early Eighties, when its spit-polished rock & roll sounded comparatively rootsy. A decade later, its style grown only to accommodate a cushier recorded sound, Huey Lewis and the News sound like yesterday's papers.

None of this should prevent Hard at Play from spawning hit singles, and there will be no need to switch channels on the car radio when the chunky rock of "Build Me Up," the midtempo groove of "It Hit Me Like a Hammer" or the sweet soul of "He Don't Know," a ballad featuring the Gospel Hummingbirds, pours out. At home, however, there's something indolent about listening to a record that offers no hope for the unexpected.

Thematically, the group that boasted that it was hip to be square has never been afraid to embrace a cliché, and the weekend celebration of "Couple Days Off" is about as novel a meditation on leisure time as a beer commercial. Elsewhere on the album, the musical accompaniment maintains a familiar balance – the guitars carefully groomed, a honking sax seasoning the mix and Lewis singing with a swing as natural as a golf stroke.

The problem is not that you've heard these songs before but that you can digest them so completely on the first go-round. The songs on Hard at Play reveal nothing through repetition; they have no secrets. You get what you expect: solid rock from a bar band that had the good fortune to hit the big time. (RS 608/609)

JOHN MILWARD