Light years ahead

Madonna hops on the electronica bandwagon with exhilarating, expectation-defying aplomb on her impressive new album Ray of Light, due in stores tomorrow.

The cynic is, of course, tempted to write this off as yet another example of a fading pop star hopping the latest trend in an effort to stay relevant amid a musical landscape that's starting to leave her behind.

And I suppose it is, really. One minute Madonna's Ms. Serious Actress belting out Don't Cry For Me, Argentina from a balcony in Buenos Aires, the next she's a doting mother -- and now she's blathering on to Q magazine about how Ray of Light would "sound great on drugs" like some tripped-out London clubgoer flitting from rave to rave in search of her next E-piphany.

Still, David Bowie-ish chameleonic behavior has always been a hallmark of the Madonna shtick. And, while no one's going to accuse this record of breaking new ground, the electronica suit arguably fits Madonna -- who has, after all, been plundering club trends since she first dragged dance music out of the gay discos and back into the mainstream in the 1980s -- much better than it did fellow dabblers like Bowie and U2.

Credit for that, one suspects, goes to her collaborator, co-writer and co-producer William Orbit, the U.K. mixmaster who's largely responsible for bathing Ray of Light in a shimmering, 50-fathom layer of sub-symphonic arrangements and brain-tickling ambient-electronic effects.

It's an immaculate-sounding record, rescued by the Material One's newly potent vocals and some dark, heart-on-her-sleeve lyrics.

And for most of the album, the match works beautifully. The opening track, Drowned World/Substitute for Love, slowly emerges from a gorgeous bed of Dream Weaver-ish sci-fi keyboards into a hazy, epic ballad that builds through a dusting of drum-and-bass break beats and ringing guitar to a gorgeous, fractured conclusion.

Kin sound-wise to the equally dense first single Frozen, the cut also finds Madonna working her retrained voice for all it's worth, moving from a fragile first whisper ("I traded fame for love/Without a second thought") to a knife-edged wail at the song's climax. We're worlds away from the squeaky-voiced nymphette who Betty Booped her way through Lucky Star years ago.

Those elastic vocals soar and stun on the album's club-friendly title track -- a frantic, buzzing dance floor number that comes closer than any other cut to capturing the ecstatic zeitgeist of the culture Ray of Light pillages.

The rest of the record dabbles with varying degrees of success in numerous sub-genres of 1990s dance music: The infectious Swim takes a familiar, steely guitar riff (recycled most recently in 54-40's Miss You) and plunks it over some likably shuffling hip-hop beats; the delightfully lascivious Candy Perfume Girl ("Young velvet porcelain boy/Devour me when you're with me") takes a stab at blunted trip-hop blanketed with processed synth-guitar in the Curve/Sneaker Pimps vein; Skin and Sky Fits Heaven ably ape mechanical, Underworld-ish trance techno, throwing Madonna's showy vocals on top almost as an afterthought; and the layered, atmospheric Frozen gets better with repeated listens.

The trippy, East Indian-flavored techno-chant Shanti/Ashtangi qualifies as the album's biggest departure, and for that it's pretty cool. Nothing Really Matters, on the other hand, is the closest thing to a "traditional" Madonna track here -- bouncy, pop-disco melody with melodramatic vocals laid on top -- and, for that reason, it's the most forgettable.

Ray of Light runs out of steam shortly after Frozen, unfortunately, as it drifts into all-too-familiar territory. The Latin-spiced To Have and Not to Hold is basically La Isla Bonita dressed up in the latest electronic threads, for instance, while Little Star -- a treacly lullaby to her daughter, Lourdes -- is a fairly pedestrian middle-of-the-road ballad.

Still, the album closer, Mer Girl is an eye-opener -- a surreal, oceanic mini-symphony that juxtaposes its quiet soundscape with some jarring lyrical images of "rotting bones" and "burning flesh."

Curious stuff, indeed. And like Ray of Light itself, it ensures we'll be watching Madonna's future moves with renewed curiosity.

Track Listing 1. Drowned World/Substitute for Love (5:08) 2. Swim (5:00) 3. Ray of light (5:20) 4. Candy perfume girl (4:36) 5. Skin (6:21) 6. Nothing really matters (4:26) 7. Sky fits heaven (4:47) 8. Santi/Ashtangi (4:28) 9. Frozen (6:12) 10. The power of goodbye (4:12) 11. To have and not to hold (5:22) 12. Little girl (5:18) 13. Mer girl (5:31)		Album rating