Annie Lennox: Bare

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * *)

The Eurythmics' reunion album — the surprisingly good Peace — failed to stir much interest, so Lennox has headed to her third solo effort. It's a collection of self-penned songs with titles — The Hurting Time, Bitter Pill, Loneliness and Oh God — that suggest that lately life hasn't been kind to the greatest female voice of 80s British pop.

Unfortunately, there are a few echoes of that era in the sound of this with its shiny, dainty, chilly production (and the cover recalls the Euryhthmics' Touch, too). The evidence of Bare's flaws comes in a live take of the album's lead track, A Thousand Beautiful Things, on an accompanying DVD.

It has a warmth and power its studio version lacks but it's a memorable song underneath, as are Pavement Cracks (a near-rewrite of Missionary Man), the fiery soul ballad Wonderful, and the Celtic-tinged lullaby The Saddest Song I've Got.

For all the hints of misery (including an explanatory essay) whatever is ailing Annie doesn't quite come through in the by-numbers music. It seems, this sister is doing it for herself. The voice is still superb. If only the songs breathed as deep.
Label: BMG