Awake and Breathe

10/26/1999 3:00 AM, LAUNCH
Ken Barnes

A pleasant surprise. The Irish quasi-teen (one member's 21) quartet's first album earlier this year took its "Celtic Spice Girls" brief too seriously. This refreshingly quick follow-up (no brooding five-year Nine Inch Nails-style absences for these gals) keeps the Titanic-isms to a minimum (or interposes jarring juxtapositions, as with the Ladysmith Black Mambazo cameo on "I Shall Be There"). And the songs (most co-writes by the group) are unpretentious pop, largely free of the precocious sexual braggadocio of the Spears/Aguilera brigade.

Occasional clunkers like the dully funky "The Shy One" (memorable advice: "treat her well and treat her good") and the diluted-Spice "My Superman" are more than offset by the good stuff, which includes virtually all the album's many ballads, especially "Are You A Ghost," "It Was Our Day," and the creditable a capella outing "In Fields Where We Lay." Freed of formula and given room to breathe, B*Witched is an entrancing prospect.