BILLY IDOL APOLOGIZES: WHAT’D HE SAY?

“WHIPLASH SMILE.” Billy Idol. Chrysalis.

Hard rock means never having to say you’re sorry, but on his fourth album Billy Idol is chock full of--as Elvis Costello once put it--”shy apologies and polite regrets.” That’s exemplified by his choice of the apologetic “To Be a Lover” (an obscure Stax song that’s been turned into an interesting techno-soul shuffle) as the LP’s first single pick.

And lest anyone get snagged on Billy’s cartoonish image and doubt his depth orsincerity, the new album comes awash with plenty of pre-release hype about how Idol has grown wiser and more contemplative.

That’s probably true, although it’s hard to tell for sure, considering that it’s near-impossible to make out a ding-dang word Billy sings on the album. In rare moments, you might catch a stray ambiguity or a description of a boy who’s “sad and lonely and blue,” but most of the time it’s all mud, albeit emotive mud.

If the album doesn’t do wonders for Idol as a great communicator, the decision to render the words incomprehensible seems like the right one on a sonic level. His voice is treated here as mostly just another instrument, both in the way Idol moves dramatically from a low mumble to a high snarl and in the way that producer Keith Forsey has downplayed the vocals to snuggle right up alongside the slash ‘n’ dash instrumentation.

And it wouldn’t be a Keith Forsey production if it didn’t have plenty of throbbing post-disco synthesizers--or, occasionally, subdued synthesizers, as in the softer and surprisingly exquisite “Sweet Sixteen.” The tough mix offers just the kind of moodiness and melancholy unease that the occasional intelligible snatch of lyric seems to threaten.

So is Billy really as somber as they say these days? Don’t strain your ears too much searching for verbal clues--you’ll have to trust the arrangements.