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Peter Wolf: Come as You Are (EMI-America, $8.98 list price) We say: Don't come at all.
For a guy who can stomp up a storm, Peter Wolf sure has cold feet when it comes to making records.
Almost three years have passed since this former mouthpiece for The J. Geils Band made his solo debut with Lights Out, an enjoyable album that balanced the singer's '60s soul roots with producer Michael Jonzun's modern-day funk instincts.
Lights Out was fun, not just because of the songs (which were average at best), but because Jonzun didn't try to disguise the three-chord simplicity of ``I Need You Tonight`` or over-emphasize the dance elements of ``Oo-Ee-Diddley Bop!`` and the title cut.
Jonzun kept the production clean and uncluttered, letting Wolf's soulful and playful delivery shine through.
But where Lights Out found Wolf merely hitching a ride on the high-tech bandwagon, Come as You Are catches him in the act of hijacking it.
The result is a disappointing collection of dance music cliches and funky overachieving that highlights production over performance in hopes of masking the weak songs (all written or co-written by Wolf).
But draping a fur coat over a skeleton doesn't fool anyone. And all the tricks co-producer E.T. Thorngren learned while remixing singles for the Talking Heads, Eurythmics and other funk/rock acts only...