***1/2 Paula Cole

AMEN

(Imago/Warner Bros.)

Cole may be the most interesting singer to emerge since Sinéad O'Connor, with a dazzling range and a knack for spinning her phrases into unpredictable curlicues. She's clever, too, offering the unreconstructed disco flare "I Believe in Love" as a first and obviously hit-bound single to distract her record company from the complexity of the rest of this CD. "I Believe in Love" is also the opening track of Amen., which then plunges deep into spiritual and personal exploration.

The songs on this album, Cole's third, groove but defy pop conventions with their labyrinthine structures and broad palette of misty sounds. She frequently uses her voice as synthesizer and strings, providing instrument-like colors. At times her lyrics trip into new-age preciousness; otherwise they fix on the struggles of the poor, the battles of self-improvement. When her phrasing gets too rococo, her words get swallowed, twisted out of meaning; but Cole has developed a vocal style that blends art rock's devotion to sound-as-texture with the moan-and-purr of classic soul singing. And the results are entrancing.

-- Ted Drozdowski