Eternal: Before The Rain (EMI/CD/Tape)

IN THEIR Louise days, Eternal looked set to be the Spice Girls in negative, thanks to their upbeat pop-soul tunes and post-fem sauce-bomb image. The Spicers, of course, went unbearably drippy on us just halfway though their debut opus. Eternal are made of sterner stuff, which is perhaps why it's taken them three albums to reach a similar state of flaccid MOR blandness.