ONE-MAN DRAG

OK, OK, so the faces we used in Record Rack last week to rate albums were stupid. While we launch a study to come up with a better symbol for rating the records, we’ll go with the old standby of 1 to 4 checks. Translation: = “Great Balls of Fire”

= “Good Vibrations” = “Maybe Baby” = “Running on Empty”

“INFECTED.” The The. Epic. The The--actually a one-man band named Matt Johnson--released its debut American album, “Soul Mining,” in 1984, and the record’s music glittered with a shimmering beauty that, alas, isn’t quite so abundant on this follow-up LP.

“Infected” does, however, show Johnson’s musical instincts to be virtually infallible. Going for a richly orchestrated sound, the Englishman fashions ambitiously arranged music that employs an imaginative array of instruments and effects. Unfortunately, Johnson doesn’t have anything particularly original to say.

In the press material, he comments that the album’s themes are AIDS, terrorism, test-tube babies and heroin and explains that he prefers to write about “the darker side of life, rather than patronize” his listeners. Surely there’s a happy medium between mindless pap and misery!

Johnson doesn’t handle his weighty themes with a very light touch, either. There’s a whining, cry-baby quality to his lyrics, which hold that America is responsible for most of the world’s ills. Johnson also spends a good amount of time attempting to justify cheap indiscretions with the whimpering lyric, “I’m just another Western guy with desires that I can’t satisfy.” That ineffectual line more or less sums up the mood of “Infected.” Needless to say, it’s hardly an uplifting record.