Richard Harris: "The Webb Sessions 1968-1969"

Raven Records, RVCD 52 (70 mins)

Dial-a-truck code: 1531

An oddity, I admit, but one that is a pure delight and should help rewrite the history of Irish pop. After all, let's not forget that for one brief shining moment way back in 1968 Richard Harris was one of Ireland's first great pop stars, regally seated at the top of, the Irish, British and American charts, prompting millions of bewildered music lovers to ask, "What the hell is he singing about, a cake left out in the rain? Who cares?

Jim Webb's MacArthur Park is classic pop, walking a fine line between pretentiousness and poetry and kept leaning in the direction of the latter by the decidedly Celtic voice of Harris, who also slipped in a Limerick-ese accent long before Dolores O'Riordan's Linger. Besides, the middle eight in that song, as in the verse, "I will take my life into my hands/And I will use it" is where both Webb and Harris soar, netting in the process the aching aspirations of countless successive generations of dreamers.

As for the two albums featured on this CD, A Tramp Shining and The Yard Went On Forever, the first could be read as a deeply personal depiction of the breakdown of Harris's first marriage, specifically in songs like Didn't We? and the second is a shamelessly apocalyptic reading of the loss of innocence on a more global scale. And the rape of an innocent in Gayla. Likewise, to a degree, in songs such as Watermark, The Hive and the quite remarkable time-shifting, nine-minute-long The Hymns From The Grand Terrace. If this is the kind of work they were able to produce more than a quarter of a century ago, Harris and Webb really should get back together and deliver at least one more album before the century ends.

Various artists: "Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire"

Varese Sarabande, VSDE 5700 (51mins)

Dial-a-track code: 1641

The shape of things to come in the next century? Probably. "Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire" is a "multi-media adventure", an enhanced CD featuring a soundtrack inspired not so much by the phenomenally popular Star Wars series of movies, but by the book Shadows Of The Empire. And what you get for your money, apart from a John Williams-like, "solidly tonal and clearly melodic" quasi-classical score written by Joel McNeely, is an interactive CD featuring a visual; presentation of artwork and memorabilia. It's all very static, really; but won't it be fun when every CD released is similarly enhanced?

Neil Diamond: "Tennessee Moon"

Columbia 481378

This album is really little more than candy floss musical and emotional posturing - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. If Neil Diamond seriously believes - as he recently claimed - that some of these songs capture the pain caused by his recent marital break-up, he's only fooling himself. Long gone are the days of self-revelation that forced the same songwriter to lay his soul on the line in songs like I Am, I Said. Not any more, you're not, Mr Diamond. At least not on the evidence of albums such as this.

Gabrielle:"Go!"

Disc, 828 724-2 (62 mins)

Dial-a-truck code: 1861

Gabrielle sure has a tough act to, follow, with Dreams scoring the highest-ever entry for a debut album, but with this release she moves on to an even higher plane, emotionally and musically. The birth of a son may have helped crystallise her previously ill-focused idealism and is an event which is celebrated in both Miracle and So Glad. In Baby I've Changed she also quite neatly, but decisively, tells an ex-lover to go to hell.

Venturing to San Francisco, on the other hand, to work with dynamic duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McEroy, who write and produce for En Vogue, led to laid-back tracks like If I Could. Though the Boilerhouse Boys are retained to produce the bulk of the album and have set Gabrielle's soul cravings in a post-Motown setting. Sophisto soul, at its best, with Gabrielle's own, lyrics reflecting a developing maturity that bodes well for her future in pop.