Surprise! No Excesses From Rockers INXS

Welcome to wherever You Are

INXS

Atlantic Records

Welcome to what you've heard before: Light blends of sensual rhythms accompanying basic guitar chords as Michael Hutchence breathily chants about girls and desire.

With Welcome to Wherever You Are, INXS returns to this familiar formula and creates a rather unremarkable, but enjoyable, collection of pop music.

The Aussie rockers have little new to offer with Welcome. Lyrics full of repetitious catch phrases and dreamy romantic sentiment, plus a sound too familiar to be either exciting or unpleasant.

The album signals a welcome departure from their most recent polished products, Kick and X, but this time the basic INXS formula that made their earlier sound to distinctive does not bring with it any of the intensity of The Swing or conceptual force of Listen Like Thieves.

Though having apparently strayed from their earlier artistic innovation, INXS should still retain its hold on the commercial airwaves. The lazy sensuality of Hutchence's vocals and hypnotic layers of piano and rhythm on "Not Enough Time," the second single to be released from welcome, should prove an irresistible draw for Top-40 listeners.

Energetic vocal harmonies and a fuller sound distinguish Welcome's seventh track, "Baby Don't Cry." Recorded live with the 65-piece Australian Concert Orchestra, the track showcases the band's musicianship at its best, having brought substance to a song whose lyrical content suffers from frequent use of the same few words, a problem which plagues most songs on the album.

INXS's return to their earlier stripped-down sound seems an appropriate accompaniment to the less-than-profound romanticism of Hutchence and his Lyrical partner, keyboardist and guitarist Andrew Farriss.

In his trademark breathy vocals, Hutchence sings about naive love games in a lyrical style reminiscent of many early '80s pop bands, including a younger INXS. This return to a simpler outlook on love is most evident on tracks like "Communication": "Light beams from outer space/Drifting to your satellite/Your dish responds."

With the environmentally-correct Eco-Pak packaging of their new CD, INXS creates a modern look but retains its overwhelmingly familiar sound. Fans of earlier INXS albums shouldn't be disappointed, but new listeners will find little to be excited about.