Even in the great tradition of eccentric Englishmen, the Television Personalities are a cult unto themselves. An artless art band, an unpopular pop group, the deliberately guileless trio has sustained a fifteen-year career with determined amateurism and a wellspring of Sixties pop-culture memories. Led by singer-guitarist Daniel Treacy, the Personalities proffer vulnerable delights and bewitching neuroses strewn with jagged bits of psychedelic noise.

Closer to God, the London group's sixth studio album, dispenses with such past proclivities as cracker-box production, sloppy tunings and time-tunnel nostalgia for an unclouded look into Treacy's heart and soul. This intense but orderly seventy-nine-minute collection about love, faith, aging and emotional collapse cuts deeply but with a whimsical touch. Sketched in simple guitar-bass-drums arrangements that suggest a stripped-down Byrds of uncertain vintage, the songs are colored in and textured by violin, saxophone, melodica and the flashback sound of tabla drums.

Candid personality debates fill "Razorblades and Lemonade," an uncertain suicide note ("On a very good day I can be so adorable") set to a jolly waltz and "This Heart's Not Made of Stone," a tenderly ambivalent lover's apology. Meanwhile, romantic bliss ("Coming Home Soon," "Little Works of Art") cohabits with the disarming seriousness of "My Very First Nervous Breakdown."

The author of past songs about David Hockney, Syd Barrett and Salvador Dali returns to topical commentary with "Goodnight Mr. Spaceman," a merry dig at the ecstasy drug scene and the band Primal Scream. The album's centerpiece is the magnificent eleven-minute title track, a harrowing, feedback-splashed confession of a Catholic upbringing.

Like a dotty uncle whose amusing madness can turn maddening on a penny, the Television Personalities come calling with a kit bag of fascinating dreams and disturbing nightmares. Invite these scruffy charmers in, and they may never leave.

Closer to God is available from Seed Records, 19 West Twenty-first Street, Suite 501, New York, NY 10010. (RS 659)

IRA ROBBINS