**** Adrian Belew

OP ZOP TOO WAH

(Passenger/Caroline)

Adrian Belew's always been capable of one thoroughly great album -- one that unites his pop savvy with his avant-rock experiments. Here it is. And just in time, since his solo career has been floundering lately, divided between experimental instrumental albums and mainstream pop discs (the last of which, 1993's Here, sounded suspiciously like ELO). This time Belew finally puts it all together, weaving the pop, the weirdness, and the guitar-hero moves into a seamless whole. He pulls the old art-rock trick of making the entire album a continuous segue, with songs taking sudden hops into instrumental abstraction, and bits of tunes recurring in different contexts. In short, prog-rock lives, and the tense and tricky "Modern Man Hurricane Blues" is a better King Crimson song than anything on the last Crimson album. But there's also plenty of pop warmth in the mix, and the straight-ahead numbers are some of his best. There's less outright whimsy than there was on Lone Rhino, but Belew is essentially a romantic with a Beatles-derived worldview. Working that sensibility into a deep and nuanced album is no small feat.

-- Brett Milano