Letters to Cleo Hit the Gas on Their Second Album by Stephanie Zacharek Long ago some lamebrain planted the notion that pop music was only for lightweights, and by and large the idea stuck, which is strange. When you think about it, trying to write a pop song after having heard "She Loves You" is pretty brave. And the further away we get from "She Loves You"- not to mention from "I Get a Kick out of You" or "My Funny Valentine"- the higher the stakes get. Writing good pop songs in 1995 poses more challenges than ever, as more and more of the possibilities seem to be exhausted. Sure, you can make it catchy - but how hard can you make it? How sweet can you make it? Can you make it swing, or thump, or swoop, or grind? And can you make me feel like I'm on vacation, even if I'm not? On their second album, Wholesale Meats and Fish (Giant/Cherry Disc, in stores August 1), Letters to Cleo meet those challenges head on and end up with one of the best pop discs of the year so far. Testing all the possibilities doesn't wring them out -it invigorates them. Even their simpler songs seem to be bursting with ideas; they vibrate with their own energy, like molecules doing the Watusi under a microscope lens. And maybe that's the key. The songs on Wholesale Meats and Fish have definite shapes, but they never sound meticulously planned. They're noisy and fun above all. In the band's press release, lead singer Kay Hanley says, "We've always been this big, fat, stupid pop band. A goofy, smiley, happy loser pop band." Maybe she thinks that because Letters to Cleo are so good at making pop look easy. Their sweat doesn't show, but it sure pays off. Sometimes it's amazing how much Letters to Cleo get away with. Song titles often have nothing to do with the songs themselves, but they usually make sense in their own weird way. What would you suppose a song like "Pizza Cutter" is about? It doesn't really matter: the cranky, abrasive guitars of Michael Eisenstein and Greg McKenna undercut the song's exhilarating party-time groove. Why not call it "Pizza Cutter"? The Eisenstein/McKenna dynamic seems to be the thing that jet-powers Wholesale Meats and Fish much of the time. The guitars try on as many personalities as they damn well please. You get a Pixies-style rave-up in "He's Got an Answer," and notes polished smooth as pebbles in a fish bowl in "Laudanum." On "Demon Rock," the guitars soar, ferocious and graceful at once; it's as if their sound were being ripped out of them like sheets out of a notebook. Drummer Stacy Jones and bassist Scott Riebling lay down a framework that helps the songs find their natural footing. "Jennifer" opens with stuttering rhythms that settle into an, easy, instinctive pace that's oddly majestic. Jones and Riebling know how to keep even the moodier songs held together at the center. They never drag their butts merely for effect. It's Hanley, though, who cuts to the heart of every song, with a voice that's somewhere between baby doll and gun moll. "God, how I love a boy on the go,' she sings on "Fast Way," sounding sensual and self-assured, the sort of girl who might have once snuck unflitered Camels from the pocket of her daddy's work shirt. Before you know it, though, she's switched to ice-cream cake: 'Cause what else is there to say? it's such a sunny day. She shows yet another side and a knack for phrasing a ballad on the lanky, luminous "Laudanum." It's often hard for a young singer to know what to do with a ballad, but Hanley doesn't seem lost at all. Instead of turning up the sweetness quotient to 11 so the whole thing will go down smooth and easy - the usual temptation - she follows the lead of Eivis Costello. Like Costello's, her phrasing is both deliberate and unstudied; sometimes it lilts a little, like a gull on an especially smooth current of air, but its slightly awkward stops and starts, its halting uncertainty, are what make it so beautiful. It has the feel of a speech you've rehearsed over and over again, only to have the words fall out in their own pattern once you're face-to-face with your beloved: "I don't want you to be like me/It'd be so easy if you'd just agree." Hanley's voice, a little huskier than usual here, gets its sweetness from her plainspokenness. If she sounds perched on the edge of desperation, she's still - for now - fully in control. The lyrics on Wholesale Meats and Fish often seem to swirl around aimlessly ("I guess it's been a while, and a long time too/Everything's still the same and so are you"), but after a few listens they blend into the textures of the songs. Besides, terrific pop melodies alone are rare enough, and Letters to Cleo dish them out generously. Wholesale Meats and Fish is enough to make you believe that the possibilities of pop music aren't even close to being exhausted. It's a reassurance that pop really. does have a future. With the road ahead and "She Loves You" in the rearview mirror, there's nothing to do but hit the gas.