It comes as no surprise that Ric Ocasek's new album, Fireball Zone, offers few surprises. He has shown an unwavering consistency throughout his long career as leader of the Cars, whose success derived in large measure from Ocasek's ability to set alienated, overwrought lyrics to extremely palatable pop melodies. But the generally happy, radio-friendly music made you wonder if Ocasek could possibly be as worried as he claimed.

In an attempt to update the classic Cars sound, producer Nile Rodgers has mixed Ocasek's edgy crooning with choruses reminiscent of Roxy Music and funky dance beats. And since Ocasek has always combined Bryan Ferry's detached romanticism with David Bowie's automaton phrasing, Rodgers – who produced Bowie's Let's Dance – is clearly at home. He has added a gloss to Ocasek's songs, filling in the gaps left by the absence of the other Cars, a serious problem on Ocasek's two previous solo efforts.

Ocasek has grouped the twelve songs on the album into two discrete halves – what he calls the light and dark sides. The light side has the catchy, uptempo "Rockaway" and "Touch Down Easy." It also has the album's two sorriest clunkers, "The Way You Look Tonight," a schmaltzy love song, and the dinky "All We Need Is Love." Naturally, the dark side is far more interesting; Ocasek's musings are characteristically paranoid – "They always said they picked you/They never knew what for/They tried to pick you apart ... They never got the picture" – and the arrangements are clean and spare.

The second half also includes the title track, an unexceptional homage to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, and the stirring "Flowers of Evil," a crisp, urgent dance track that is one of the album's finest, recalling Baudelaire (both authors are personally thanked in the liner notes). The two songs are saved from pretension, however, by Ocasek's pop savvy; teaming what otherwise might be ponderous images with catchy rhythms is what he does best.

Fireball Zone is Ocasek's most accomplished solo album to date. The songs may be a bit uneven, but Ocasek succeeds in reminding us why the Cars' schizzy combination of cheery pop tunes and black, high-strung lyrics was so appealing in the first place. (RS 610)

DEBORAH KIRK