"I Need a Woman" and "This Boy Needs to Rock," the titles of two of the songs on 7 Wishes, neatly encapsulate both Night Ranger's interests and its appeal. The band plays heavy metal with a light enough touch for radio and MTV and bellows bombastic sub-Broadway ballads that, from a distance, sound slightly sincere. If Meat Loaf were to make a heavy-metal album, it would sound like this.

Nothing on 7 Wishes is as annoying as last year's insanely jingoistic "You Can Still Rock in America" or the inexplicable "Sister Christian," but nothing is as perversely distinctive either. The music is ridiculously uniform: as a public service, the LP has been banded so one can tell where one song ends and another begins. The lyrics, most of them by bass player Jack Blades, either aim for the lowest common denominator ("I say fast/She say slow") or make no sense ("Do you sleep at all/When you sleep?"). By homogenizing heavy metal and heavy ballads, Night Ranger can make a good living. But that's about all it can do. (RS 455)

JIMMY GUTERMAN