falsettos hover behind him like mist over a lake.

Many of the tunes are mere snippets of Italianate melodies, fleshed out by Barry Gibb's coarrangements into ethereally textured mood pieces. The most striking cuts. "After Dark" and "Desire," stretch a gossamer fabric of strings and singing over a delicate samba beat to suggest the ultimate pop refinement of Miami-based, blue-eyed soul. Whereas the elder Gibbs might have developed the equestrian melody of "Warm Ride" into an overblown gallop, baby Andy avoids sounding fulsome by confiding the lyrics in a near murmur. In "I Can't Help It" and "Rest Your Love on Me," two duets with Olivia Newton-John, the voices blend into the production so meticulously that the vibratos seem mechanically synced.

After Dark may have scant appeal to rock fans, but on its own pop terms, it's a production triumph. There's no cheap filler. As ice-cream parlor music for Romeo and Juliet, it's first-class. (RS 315)

STEPHEN HOLDEN