No new "Bette Davis Eyes." That's the dispatch that matters, I guess, about the new album by Kim Carnes, whose bruised voice seems roughened more by constant fervent singing, like Bob Seger's, than by whiskey, cigarettes and long nights, like Marianne Faithfull's. The sound of weariness, not experience. Only two songs are of much interest here: one bad, one good. "Breakin' Away from Sanity" is a pretty lucid poem about the terror of a psychotic break, and Carnes sings it in her clearest voice, backed only by piano–except, that is, for the choir of little children. It's an absurd arrangement, and just the sort of thing that makes Carnes' ravaged voice sound gimmicky. The LP's high point–this, on a low horizon–is "Take It on the Chin," arranged with a big beat and lots of synthesizer. An able lyricist, Carnes wrote it, and she is convincingly tough as she walks away from her boyfriend, whom she caught in her car with another woman, telling him, "I can whisper dirty with someone else."

She's always whispering dirty; that's the appeal of her voice. But the rest of the record sounds like producer Val Garay thought injecting a little robotic coolness would put new life into the most ordinary rock & roll, as if old Rod Stewart tracks could be spiffed up by Kraftwerk. But it doesn't make the whole sound unique, only less direct, removing Carnes' breathing-in-your-ear voice to shouting distance. (RS 383)

DEBBY MILLER