*1/2 Natalie Merchant

OPHELIA

(Elektra)

Unlike her solo debut, Tigerlily, whose music was sparse to the point of enervation, Ophelia surrounds Merchant's doleful contralto with plush but restrained settings. Basses throb tastefully, keyboards and strings lend a lambent spice to the atmosphere. It's a pleasant sound but keyed very low. "Thick As Thieves," with an arrangement centered on Daniel Lanois's pastel guitar keening, subverts its doomy intent with an excess of politeness. Merchant's lyrics, which range from teeth-achingly banal to offhandedly obscure, only add to the album's lugubrious pace.

I can usually listen to almost anything, whether it's meant to cleave the skull or soothe the nerves; yet halfway through and confronted with yet another gauzy, soft-focused song, I couldn't help yawning so ferociously that tears came to my eyes. The disc's coda -- an instrumental reprise of the title cut devised by Gavin Bryars, an English composer who specializes in a sort of wintry positivism -- is a tony version of all that's preceded, which can best be summed up as easy listening for depressives.

-- Richard C. Walls