BOSTON Don't Look Back (Epic)

She's the one dreams were invented for, and you've had her. The pursuit was long and arduous, the affair sudden arid turbulent. Ypu've gone madly to her generous breast, and the cries she uttered when you probed in just the right place are sounds you'll hear in the-night until you breathe your final breath. It's as though it had all been stored up for twenty-plus years, waiting for her to come to you. But you don't win the American Rock Public, that sweet restless bitch, that promiscuous angel, and not pay a price. If you lose her, what could possibly replace the fulfillment you felt in her arms? So after the initial euphoria comes the panic: how to keep her amused, what to do for an encore.

If you're Boston, whose sophomore effort follows by a considerable length of time the bestselling debut album in history— mull over that statistic for a moment: a band nobody heard of (until a friendly publicist told me

the record was top 20, Boston only meant Yaz & Co. to me), and here they are with 18 copies of their LP sold for every citizen in Wyoming —you do what you did before. It'll probably work, too. Imagine the collective sigh of relief over at Black Rock when the tapes were finally delivered and the Epic execs got to hear "Don't Look Back," the title song, an immaculate inversion/ composite of the two lead-off tracks on Boston. It's all here, that prototypical AOR sound: piercing coasting highs, plundering bottom, vocals straining over the top, layered guitars, peek-a-boo solos, vapid lyrics, formulaic altering of tempo and time sequence. Don't Look Back is a frightening album, so self-assured, so careful in the dynamic tension the songs create, so predictable, that it barely seems a result of human labor.

Tom Scholz, Boston's mastermind, is a magician all right, and his sound is his own, a unique amalgam of post-60's progressive hard rock moves and transposed west-coastal ease, a truimph of technology. He's the Steven Speilberg of rock production: you absolutely marvel at the way things are accomplished (through Brad Delp's doubletracked vocals, for example), all the effects are earned honorably and with a certain amount of distinction, and there's a lot to admire in the construction. Scholz is no charlatan, no mere poseur. If you don't listen too closely, the mix is invigoratingly original. He understands melody as well as flash, texture as well as volume, concept as well as attitude, and that knowledge alone sets Boston apart from many of their multiplatinum compatriots.

So what? You can call every trick thirty seconds before it happens, the repetition is appalling for only a second album, and the lyrics are

subliterate (there's a lyric sheet this time; some people ask for trouble). "Well come on people, the time has come to get together/...So come on, put your hands together/You know it's now or never, take a chance on rock and roll." "You know a man doesn't live on bread alone/He's got to have some lovin' each and every night/And a woman's got to have it if the truth be knowrVLet's get together honey, it's all right!" When Scholz feels elated, "a new day is breakin', the dawn's arrivin', the sun is shinin'..." But since in all cases the backdrop is tropospherically identical, making mood and idea moot, it doesn't matter at all what the hell Delp is singing about.

"Don't Be Afraid" and "It's Easy" are standard Scholz goulash, but it's on "Feelin'' Satisfied" , and "Party" that Boston is truly unable to conceal its chief weakness. The first, similar in theme and sequential placement to "Rock & Roll Band" on LPl, wants to be a get-on-yourfeet exhortation, and the second tries to swagger hedonistically, but Boston has so little rock W roll coursing through its veins—

Scholz is the kind of musician you suspect of never listening to preSgf. Pepper rock; his songs betray no prior influence—that they're more depressing than uplifting. This band is so happy it's a shame their kids-with-a-chemistry-set playfulness isn't more rousing. Face it, Don't Look Back isn't sexy, or daring, or crafty (as opposed to crafted) It is test tube rock, and all too rarely does the embtional motivation seem genuine. I find myself responding to Delp's stiff upper lip facade with Rascalian organ on "Used To Bad News" ("I've been used, but I'm takin' it like a m^ryTm confused, but I'm doin' the best that I can") and to the admission of doubt and inadequacy in the midst of the turgid "A Man I'll Never Be" ("I can't get any stronger, I can't climb any higher/You'll never know just how hard I've tried), but that's coincidence of circumstance, not criticism. Boston makes cold, computerized music that's antithetical to everything venturesome and vital about rock 'n' roll, and if they sell 20 millon of this one, they still couldn't make me care. cancer, the big question for the Dictators is: are they Dies or are they 'Tators? 'Cause everyone and his reflection keeps picking up rumors that anyday now these ratjags are gonna have to be "cleaned up" into five sweet filed-down kittens. Guys that if Jackson Browne had 'em over they wouldn't throw up on Joni. Yeah, sure, that'll be the day and set it to music.

Mitch Cohen