**1/2 Cranes

POPULATION FOUR

(Dedicated)

The Cranes are not diffident about displaying their existential aches and brains. Last year La tragédie d'Oreste et Electre, a disc with music set to extracts of Jean-Paul Sartre's Les mouches, came out in France. So, yes, this British band do want people to be aware of their mental bent. But, no, the Cranes do not want people to know what they're going on about. Even on a less-highbrow outing like this, with the songs in English, singer Alison Shaw's fluttery squeak renders words unintelligible and therefore meaningless. Ultimately this outfit is more about emotion than intellect.

It's easier to appreciate the stark shadings of the disc if you can shift Shaw's irritating vocal tremblings to the sidelines and focus instead on the strum of guitar strings or the shuffle of a drum. Nothing here burns into memory the way much of 1994's Loved did; that disc was like one of those dreams that you can't recall exactly but it leaves your head rattled for hours afterward. This disc is more standard subconscious fare; it's one of those dreams that dissolves even before you wake up.

-- Amy Finch

(The Cranes play this Saturday, March 15, at Axis. Call 262-2437.)