The 1984 debut of Los Angeles' Bangles, All Over the Place, was a poprock formalist's wet dream. For thirty minutes and eleven songs, the listener was dizzied by a frighteningly complete compendlum of the greatest bits from the genre's greatest hits – quintessentially scruffy acoustic and electric guitar sounds, Brit-pop chord voicings, Irresistible progressions and turnarounds and cool little riffettes right out of a crackly car radio, circa 1967. The three- and four-part harmonies were the biggest flashback of all, loosely and gleefully quoting everyone from the Beatles to the Mamas and the Papas. Miniskirts and Jean Shrimpton hairdos notwithstanding, the Bangles made a modern statement: they dared imply that men were only a part of their solar system, not its center.

Radical social astronomy or no, the Bangles were immediately praised – and pigeonholed – as traditionalists. And like too many traditionalists, they didn't sell as many records as they deserved to. All Over the Place was an eminently lovable album, sure, but it didn't have enough – as it was so pithily phrased in pop rock's heyday – of that now sound.

Different Light puts then and now in significantly better balance. Much to their credit, the Bangles are using less hook-happy song structure and more modernized production, covering their roots without burying them ten feet under. Not that these women were ever the knee-jerk revivalists some wanted them to be, but this second LP belongs more to the Bangles than to their idols.

No doubt most of the squawking in the land of 1000 classics will be about David Kahne's production, which is more deliberate, sophisticated and airwaves ready than the production on All Over the Place. For the most part, though, squawking is unjustified. "Manic Monday" – authored by Christopher, a.k.a. Prince – yearns a little too baldly for Top Forty fame, but that's partly a byproduct of the smothering of Susanna Hoffs' lead vocal in a busy mix. Otherwise, the oversynthed bridge scoots by too fast to annoy, and seasonings like acoustic piano add too much to the momentum of the track for dismissal as production filigree. The slickest thing about the song, actually, is the song itself – it is not, shall we say, one of Prince's more painstaking efforts.

The three other nonoriginals on the record revert to the Bangles' usual terrific taste in outside material – particularly "If She Knew What She Wants," Jules Shear's should-be classic about the aggravating task of loving someone whose emotional age is around six.

As for the Bangles' own song smithery, it's plainly starting to advance past the fan-apes-idol phase. Some of this growing up may be the result of dividing the writing and arranging chores – guitarists Susanna Hoffs and Vicki Peterson now share the burden with bassist Michael Steele and drummer Debbi Peterson. At any rate, the band has become deliciously facile with instrumental and arranging minutiae. They're also becoming more choosy about what they try to squeeze into a song. A few of the goodies: the weird gonglike sound effects and the atonal synth roars on Liam Stemberg's "Walk Like an Egyptian"; the cheesy organ and bar-band guitars on "Standing in the Hallway"; the jazz underpinnings and Link Wray guitar solo on Alex Chilton's "September Gurls"; and the arena-crunge opening and the vibraphone closing on "Angels Don't Fall in Love." The last track takes the LP's nerviest structural risk, abandoning the verse-chorus-verse format halfway through for an extended bridge, a monologue in which the protagonist takes a good shot at men partial to dating illusions instead of women.

One of the biggest revelations of Different Light is Michael Steele's debut as a singer and songwriter. Surprisingly, she shows herself to be the band's most interesting lead vocalist. Her alto is full of blue-Monday moodiness; her phrasing is informed by the talk-sing styles of Bob Dylan and Rickie Lee Jones. And Steele's angry, sorrowful ballad "Following" arguably stands as the LP's strongest track. Certainly, it points the band in another direction – toward darker feelings as well as jazz and folk constructions.

The band's focus next time out should be on the lyrics; Light's, unfortunately, are printed on the dust jacket, and they're the record's Achilles' heel. Give the band credit for consistently attempting to avoid the clichés that pop rock practically invented, but in trying to be original and play it cool, they let too many of these scenarios fall emotionally flat. We know the speaker in "Not Like You" loves someone without pitying him for his problems, yet the resolve and regret tangled up in such a situation just don't come through.

The title track has real possibilities as a three-minute movie about love as intellectual calisthenics; once again, however, emotional nuance is missing. "Following" is the only significant exception, typically Bangles in its telegraphic narrative and emotionally distanced vantage point. But it taps out a complete message, allowing the listener to get involved, to really feel it. At least these songs stretch for something. Held up against the Bangles' usual aspirations, "Walking down Your Street" almost comes off as a throwaway, just a slightly above-average paean to the motivational powers of randiness.

Even that track is rescued by the two things that make Bangles music such pure pleasure – timeless, no-lag melodies and unpredictable, goose-bumpraising harmonies, deftly made present-day by mannerisms taken from nouveau soul and British dance pop. Light's best example is the luminous "Let It Go," a track with an ensemble lead vocal, which was originally slated for the B side of a single and not for the LP at all. The quartet might still be woodshedding in other areas, but in their harmonies they've already arrived, with a singular sound both fully developed and full of possibility.

The nonformalists, bless their history-proof little hearts, won't be buying this LP for anything but that pure pleasure. Maybe after dust has been settling on it for a while, the historians will forgive Different Light for having sounded as if it belonged in the year in which it was released. (RS 469)

LAURA FISSINGER