In 1986, The Dream Academy had a sleeper hit with "Life in a Northern Town," a glowingly nostalgic ballad centered on a hypnotic, chanting chorus. Following this single with a well-received debut album, the English trio enjoyed a brief stint as the darling of critics and college students before falling into a sophomore slump: Despite the involvement of Lindsey Buckingham and noted producer Hugh Padgham, Remembrance Day, from 1987, garnered less enthusiastic notices and went nowhere on the charts.

For its third album, A Different Kind of Weather, the Academy – singer-songwriter-guitarist Nick Laird-Clowes, keyboardist Gilbert Gabriel and oboist Kate St. John – has again enlisted the aid of a name artist. Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, who coproduced the record and plays guitar and/or bass on several tracks, would seem a logical choice for a band whose sound and sensibility are so clearly rooted in British psychedelia. Indeed, the album's overall feel – its atmospheric arrangements, rife with wispy background vocals and horn embellishments – evokes Gilmour's previous work somewhat, but it more closely echoes the work of some of the Dream Academy's fellow neo-psychedelic groups from across the Atlantic, most notably Prefab Sprout. Sprout came to the attention of pop connoisseurs at about the same time as the Academy and induced a similar reaction: Admirers praised the group's graceful melodies and sophisticated musicianship, while detractors found the music overly tame or precious. And Laird-Clowes shares with Sprout frontman Paddy McAloon both a plaintive tenor and a fascination with Beatlesque pop structures (the first single from A Different Kind of Weather is a remake of John Lennon's "Love" set to a hip-hop beat).

But whereas McAloon's melodic invention made the stuffier moments on Sprout's recent album Jordan: The Comeback forgivable, Laird-Clowes has penned nothing as elegant or infectious as "Life ..." for Weather. "Lucy September" offers solid, Stax-like percussion and "Twelve-Eight Angel" an appealingly wistful refrain; but then there's the tedious "Waterloo," all pointless piano tinkerings and New Age-y synth melodrama, and Tim Hardin's "It'll Never Happen Again," which adds to this formula Gilmour's trademark guitar wails to adorn lyrics like "Why can't you be what I want you to be?" The members of Dream Academy have proved themselves able, even canny musicians in the past, but the pompous orchestration and dearth of good tunes on A Different Kind of Weather make for an iffy forecast. (RS 599)

ELYSA GARDNER