After its 1996 album Tarantula, the British band Ride called it quits thanks to the time-honored "creative differences" between songwriters and guitarists Andy Bell and Marc Gardener. Gardener was always the better singer, but Bell was the band's real visionary, and he was the first to resurface in America with a new group and a new album. And regardless of what the sales figure show, Hurricane blows the Gallagher brothers away. Bell successfully charts a course between the live-in-the-studio energy and immediacy of Tarantula or 1990's Ride EP and the heavily orchestrated, psychedelic arrangements of 1994's Carnival of Light, Ride's best album. He's still enamored of '60s rock sounds-the phased vocals, Mellotrons, Hammond organ, tabla, and vintage guitar tones-but he's a much more skillful synthesist than jokers like Lenny Kravitz, Matthew Sweet, or even Oasis. Songs like "Just Another Illusion" and "Stand in Line" recall the spirit of '67 more than the specific recordings, complete with Bell asserting the classic rock & roll themes of independence and individuality."When I turn the lights on and see my baby dancing, then I'm a lucky man," Bell sings, and his passion is such that you feel lucky for sharing it with him. Jim Derogatis