You Won't See Them Cry

By Wendy Cole

PERFORMER: WILSON PHILLIPS

ALBUM: SHADOWS AND LIGHT

LABEL: SBK/EMI

THE BOTTOM LINE: The sweet harmonies are back, but the trio's second album is startlingly personal and candid.

A little mushy, a little square, a little cataclysmic. That was the response to Wilson Phillips' eponymous debut album in 1990, which sold 8 million copies and spent much of the year lording it over the pop charts. Seemingly out of nowhere, the two daughters of Beach Boy Brian Wilson and one daughter of John and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas emerged as cultural heroines for a nation of confused and vulnerable adolescent girls. Their first batch of songs dealt mostly with young love, lost love and heartbreak.

What a difference two years make. In the trio's new album, Shadows and ! Light, the signature sweet harmonies are back but the subject matter is far more personal -- and gut wrenching. All three women have been estranged from their fathers -- whose well-publicized problems have included drugs and other hazards of rock stardom -- and their anguish over those fractured relationships is dealt with in startlingly candid cuts.

Chynna Phillips' All the Way from New York movingly describes a daughter's nervous attempt to reach out to a distant, preoccupied father: "Would you fly all the way/ To stand here next to me?/ I didn't think so, no." Carnie and Wendy Wilson, in Flesh and Blood, also address their father directly: "How can we be like enemies/ . . . What does it take to make your heart bleed/ Daddy aren't we enough?"

Yet another journey into the deep was inspired by Chynna Phillips' painful memories of being sexually molested as a child. (The assailant was not a family member.) Where Are You? picks up where Suzanne Vega's 1987 pop hit about child abuse left off. The gently rocking tune triumphantly attests to the possibility of letting go of hurt and self-blame: "You don't have to look out that window/ Anymore/ You can come back to yourself . . ."

Like Wilson Phillips' first album, Shadows and Light was produced and co- written by Glen Ballard, who has showcased the vocals with even more elaborate and satisfying arrangements this time. There are horns aplenty on this album, and a full complement of strings that gives sophistication, for example, to the already much played single You Won't See Me Cry. Another standout is Fueled for Houston, a frolicking, hard-driving rock tune with a brassy edge that evokes the rawness of the B-52s.

The most curious cut is Goodbye, Carmen, a "tribute" to the foreign housekeepers who toil anonymously for the rich and famous: "Thank you for staying with us for a while/ With your pretty smile/ And someday you'll get home again." It is an earnest effort but comes off as a bit condescending.

Wilson Phillips, gearing up for their first U.S. tour as headliners this summer, were smart enough to realize they couldn't make a career out of syrupy ballads devoted to young love even if they are all still in their early 20s. They have unabashedly gone out on a limb with this impressive follow-up album. They seem in no danger of tumbling.