*** En Vogue

MASTERPIECE THEATRE

(East/West)

Urban soul's fiercest trio give their rivals no ground at all in this, their fourth studio CD. Blending classical-music motifs with their own nervously intense soprano vocals, Terry Ellis, Maxine Jones, and Cindy Herron live and love freely in the unexpected -- and make you like it.

Clichés of urban soul? You won't find 'em. Emblematic of their eclectic liberties are "Love Won't Take Me Out" and "Sad But True," which spread the group's ecstatic gospel singing on a bed of piano (the former borrows from Rachmaninov's C-sharp-minor Prelude, the latter from Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata), and "Love U Crazay," which links En Vogue's singing to Sugar Plum's celesta solo from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. If this were Faith Evans, Destiny's Child, or Aaliyah, one might be tempted to smirk or guffaw; but given the delicate heat, melisma, and a cappella elegance of En Vogue's singing, the precision and passion in these songs' sensuously allusive arrangements sounds inspired and right. As always with En Vogue, Thomas McElroy and Denzil Foster do most of the songwriting and all of the production.

-- Michael Freedberg