Although you've probably never heard it, Saint Etienne's So Tough is visionary pop that ought to be a hit. The CD cover is an old photograph of a little girl – a tomboy – looking sweetly inquisitive. She's on the verge of experience, and that sense of expectancy can be heard in the way vocalist Sarah Cracknell embellishes the bouncy, filigreed tunes with a lovely, clear voice: "Everyone's dreaming of all they've got to live for/Joking around still digging that sound." Digging that sound themselves, keyboardist Pete Wiggs and guitarist Bob Stanley – Saint Etienne's composers – invent a new pop environment based on an affectionate rehash of swinging '60s styles. Bass notes are mixed with rich-sounding computerized chimes, soft piano or sweet violas, making each track a whimsical, Utopian narrative.

Saint Etienne's cast of characters – Dilworth, Hobart, Calico, Conchita – inhabit an impressionistic soundscape ("Avenue"), a fanciful rap ("Calico"), a girl-group pledge ("You're in a Bad Way"), a nostalgic reverie ("Leafhound") and a lovelorn ballad ("Hobart Paving"). Their world (families, clubs, eccentric locals) is what must suffice in a fragmented era in which pop music's legacy is often the only common ground. There's a surprise from track to track, usually announced by a movie sound clip or a record sample like Rush's "Spirit of Radio," testaments to Saint Etienne's big pop ears and their meaningful emulation of hip-hop collage. The diversity recalls the group's debut album, Foxbase Alpha (1992), yet So Tough is entirely different.

It's Blondie without trash, each cut a delightful pop homage bestirring lifelike memories. Among the high points is "Avenue," an elegiac report on an English day that folds and unfolds in choruses of onomatopoeia. Cracknell's bah-da-da-da-da-da-das are split up by a thunder crack, then a harpsichord interlude. The eclectic sense of rhythm that has revitalized British pop through raves, techno and other aural experiments allows Wiggs and Stanley to make "Avenue" one of the most breathtaking set pieces since Roxy Music's "Amazona."

Earlier, "Mario's Cafe," the group's account of daily episodes and wonderment, includes lyrics like "Did you pick Wednesday's fight?/And did you see the KLF last night?" Everything relates to pop for Saint Etienne, which means there's nothing in this arty, charming, particularly English group that American pop fans cannot relate to. (RS 662)

ARMOND WHITE