CELINE DION”The Colour of My Love” Epic*...

CELINE DION

“The Colour of My Love”

Epic

* 1/2

What a waste of great pipes.

This 25-year-old Canadian singer, who can hold her own with Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, continues to squander her voice on those romantic bombastic ballads-- bad bombastic ballads at that.

That award-winning “Beauty and the Beast” duet made her a star, so now she seems to be building her career around similarly swelling, romantic ballads and her second U.S. album is loaded with them.

Bombastic ballads aren’t necessarily bad, particularly if the accent is on stark melodrama rather than syrupy emotionalism. But here Dion is knee-deep in syrup. On “The Power of Love,” “Think Twice” and “Only One Road,” you can almost feel her revving up for the kill--that grandiose, note-stretching finish--as if her purpose isn’t to interpret these songs, but merely to dazzle you with her vocal power.

Up-tempo songs aren’t the answer for her either. She’s such a dyed-in-the-wool ballad singer that she can’t loosen up when the tempo accelerates, and the few faster-paced songs on this album come across very stiffly.

With that great voice Dion has plenty of choices. But right now she’s taking the easy, commercial route. Maybe on the next album she’ll detour into something more challenging and artistically rewarding.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).