** Crash Test Dummies

A WORM'S LIFE

(Arista)

Having plunged from the whimsy cliff with their last single, "Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm," Crash Test Dummies had nowhere to go but up. Their third album, A Worm's Life, however, isn't the creative climb they might have been aiming for. The good news is that their jovial, complex pop melodies ("All This Ugly") keep often self-conscious lyrics from pedantry. Brad Roberts's floor-rattling baritone sings urgently of jellyfish and poking things in toasters (is that a Time Bandits reference on "Many Dangers"?), but with such ominous portent all the fun gets sapped out before the first chorus. And that's the rub: the Crash Test Dummies put too much effort into their glibness (as on the dull "I'm a Dog") and fail to make any statement in the process. They fare much better when they write genuine tunes that can stand alone (the countrified, gentle "My Own Sunrise") and lay off trying to be quirky. This is one band who need to learn how to take their fun less seriously -- and their seriousness with less irreverence.

-- Randee Dawn Cohen