News-Pilot from San Pedro, California • 47

SI RECORD REVIEWS Latest Twain is slightly off the mark COUNTRY Shania Twain, "Come On Over" Rating: Mercury Shania Twain is a down-home country Cosmo Girl. She's got the looks (the best-known belly button in Nashville!) and a Gal Power message that on this new album exhorts women to "take a break, take control" and playfully cautions men that "if you want to touch her, ask!" Yup, this is light years from "Stand By Your Man" territory. Twain is a new breed of female country star, one who appeals to teen-agers and their wannabe-hip moms who need some sassy music to pop in their tape decks on the way to the mall. "Come On Over" should thrill them to pieces. Thirteen of the album's 16 songs are rousing calls to arms with beats that marry country to rock in the same manner that helped Twain's last album, "The Woman In Me," sell nine million copies.

Twain and producer (and husband) Mutt Lange seem to realize that her limited vocal range is more suited to playful, uptempo numbers than to nuanced ballads. Lange, who produced Def Leppard and Bryan Adams, knows his rock riffs well and recycles a couple of classics here. "Rock This Country" steals the power chords from The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," while "Honey I'm Home" sounds so much like Queen's "We Will Rock You" that Freddy Mercury is probably phoning his lawyer from the Great Beyond as we speak. Although the music sounds processed, the lyrics are witty and often a lot of fun. The song titles alone provide glimpses of what's in store: "Man! I Feel Like a "Don't Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)" and "Whatever You Do! Don't!" If that strikes you as felonious use of exclamation points (and there are more! Many don't worry.

Lyrically, Twain usually exhorts gently, with a wink and a yelp. Throughout it all, there are so many cries of "woo-hoo!" and "let's go!" and "kick it!" that Twain comes off more like a cheerleader or aerobics leader than a singer. And that could could well be the intention. Twain leaves the heartbreak to Leann Rimes and that Judd woman. This is a feisty, feel-good album, and no doubt once the sales are measured.

Twain will feel good all the way to the bank. Woohoo! Glenn Whipp, Staff Writer. ROCK The Replacements, "All For For All" Rating: Reprise Don't listen to those Replacements fans who declare that nothing the brilliant Minneapolis band did after they signed to Sire in 1985 amounted to much. They'll tell you the band's pre-major label 1980s days of on- and off-stage self-indulgence and self-destruction are what mattered most. for For All." the new two-CD set that samples the band's Sire albums from 1985's "Tim" through its 1990 swan song "All Shook Down," background.

Also, the sense of wonder that made the group's debut so intoxicating seems to have gone missing over the years. The single "Summertime" sounds shallow and calculated for airplay rather than heartfelt, and overproduction sinks otherwise- efforts such as "Cry" and "I Can't Frustratingly, tracks featuring a more spirited instrumental approach "Another Flavour" and "So Much" come up short in the melody department. The end result: an album that's pleasant and listenable, but not much more. The band will be appearing Nov. 19 at the Mayan Theatre in downtown Los Angeles.

S.G. REGGAE Steel Pulse, "Rage and Fury" Rating Moon Shaggy, "Midnite Lover" Rating Virgin Reggae pop acts like UB40 can be credited or blamed for the emergence of reggae as a formidable force on the pop charts, albeit a watereddown pop version of the Jamaican sound. You can hear it on best-selling newcomers like Shaggy and reggae veterans like Steel Pulse. The latest releases by these two acts, both previous Grammy winners, share concessions to dance hall pop reggae but display a striking contrast in approach. Steel Pulse, a British band that a few years ago celebrated its 20th anniversary, still embraces the social protest pioneered by Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.

On "Rage and Fury," Steel Pulse's first new release in several years and the first for Moon, David Hinds recaptures the anger that fueled the band's landmark albums "True "Earth Crisis" and "Babylon the Bandit" in the early '80s. But Hinds grafts his lyrics about racism, political indifference and ghetto crime (on songs like "Black and Proud," Settle the Score" and "Emotional to an overly synthetic sound that favors drum programming over the real thing. In the attempt to sound contemporary to mainstream audiences, the band mutes the power of the songs. Hinds' singing and songwriting is as powerful as ever, but it's time for the remaining three members of Steel Pulse to recruit a couple of new members and become a band again. The cover of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl," the album's first single, also sounds out of place in an album built entirely on protest songs.

Blame that on record company pressure. Shaggy doesn't share that problem: Nearly every song on "Midnite Lover," his sequel to "Boombastic," goes for the pop approach, favoring love songs and sexual swagger over social protest. But like Steel Pulse's latest. Shaggy's first single off the album is a cover song rather than one of the originals he co-wrote. His duet with Marsha on the Janis Joplin standard "Piece of My Heart" shows just how far record companies Daily Pilot are willing to go to spoon feed reggae to unsuspecting pop listeners.

With his sing rapping style, Shaggy has a unique approach, but this is lightweight stuff. Michael Cote, Scripps Howard News Service ECLECTIC Forest For the Trees, "Forest For the Shania Twain's "Come On Over" is a feisty, feel-good album. soundly refutes that claim. Disc one, "All For Nothing," offers a representative group of songs from the studio albums, including lesser-heard tracks such as the forlornly beautiful "Skyway," and "The Ledge," a scorching track that places the listener right atop the building with its suicidal narrator. Disc two, "Nothing For All," collects 17 unreleased and promotional-only tracks.

Some "Beer for Breakfast," "All He Wants to Do Is Fish" are predictably jokey fare, and some a colorless cover of Hank Mizell's "Jungle Rock" are just subpar. But lurking among the odds and ends are more than enough gems to compensate. Namely, a crackling, rough-edged "Can't Hardly Wait" that outshines the later horn-laden version, a snarling live cover of the Only Ones' "Another Girl, Another Planet" and "Portland," as winning a song as anything the band ever released officially. If you don't own anything by the Replacements, "All For For All" makes a fine starting point. But be forewarned: You'll want all the complete individual albums before long.

Sam Gnerre, Staff Writer The Sundays, "Static and Silence" Rating: DGC The Sundays show the difficulty of succeeding too well with one's first album: following it up can be treacherous. "Reading, Writing and Arithmetic" (DGC, 1990) captivated listeners with melodies propelled by David Gavurin's sparkling guitar and Harriet Wheeler's warm vocals. Since then, the pair have released an inferior follow-up, got married and generally disappeared from sight for four years until "Static While by no means a disaster, the new album falls short of recapturing the magic the duo once had. The changes over the years have been subtle, but unmistakable. Wheeler still has one of pop's most entrancing voices, sounding like a more accessible Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins) on the album's airier ballads such as "Leave This City" and "Folk Gavurin's guitar has lost its prominence in the mix, however.

Instead, strings and the occasional horn section push his warm jangle well into the Trees" Rating: Dream Works Behold an album without precedent, a study in existentialism that radically challenges concepts of popular music. Several years ago Carl Stephenson, the group's mastermind, o- produced Beck's seminal "Mellow Gold" album and co-wrote the breakout single "Loser." Stephenson also recorded the bold "Forest for the Trees" several years ago, but the project was shelved, reportedly because record executives feared the fragile musician couldn't endure the stress involved in the album's release. Eventually Stephenson's mental illness landed him in the hospital. He's convalesced now, and DreamWorks is going ahead with "Forest for the Trees." There's a hint of Beck's free-all style on the album, though Stephenson's approach is more methodical and unified bagpipes and a tabla glide along with a throbbing bass and the chants of the uplifting "Dream," a stunning first single that contrasts with Beck's contrived jumbles. Meanwhile, Stephenson plays violin, sitar, keyboards, percussion, and he programs reverberating drum loops.

There are other participants under his guidance including Beck himself on harmonica and backing vocals and Stephenson blends the thick mix into a surreal hodgepodge. Bewitching as the music is, it frames provocative lyrical commentary that is at once innocent and penetrating. "All that I know is what I the rest is created by mind You create the reason for your existence," goes Stephenson's electronically processed vocals on "You Create the Reason." There's another reality issue on "Dream," which features a chorus of "When I am dreaming, I don't know if I'm truly asleep or if I'm when I get up. I don't know if I'm truly awake or if I'm still dreaming." It goes without saying there's only a select few who would indulge in Stephenson's musical hypnosis, contemplate what he's saying and try to understand him. However, those who get that far are apt to judge "Forest for the Trees" an unusually rewarding album.

Chuck Campbell, Scripps Howard News Service Cornershop, "When I Was Born for the 7th Time" Rating: Luaka Bros. From the opening Bombay-meets-theBayou squeeze box sounds of "Sleep on the Left Side." the lead track here, it's evident that the musical melange hinted at by Cornershop's previous release. 1995's "Woman's Gotta Have It." has RAVE! Friday, November 7. 1997 K25.