In the cruelly ageist culture of pop music, it is a brave soul indeed that will not only admit to getting older, but will actually draw attention to the fact by flaunting it as an album title.

Mind you, for Michael -- who celebrates his 33rd birthday next month -- the passage of time is clearly a good thing. It marks the end of the protracted legal entanglements that kept him from recording for almost six years, and it also further reinforces his progression from clean-cut teen idol to brooding artiste.

The problem is that Michael has interpreted "older" exclusively to mean "mature." The musical result is an album so uniformly mellow, it feels oppressive. These are the painfully self-conscious ruminations of a performer who seems to believe that seriousness of intent can only be conveyed by restricting himself to "adult" music.

Virtually every arrangement here seems modelled after his breakthrough hit, Careless Whisper. Unlike that sublime ballad, however, the lyrics on Older are often little more than a catalogue of expressions of self-pity. "I'm going down/Won't you help me/Save me from myself," "I don't recognise people I care for," "Star people/Counting your money till your soul turns green" ... if you felt any pangs of compassion for Michael's plight before, you'll be hard-pressed to retain them after listening to him moan about them for 59 minutes. As his past work has proven, Michael is a superior writer.

With any luck, this clearly cathartic exercise will allow him to look beyond the narrow confines of his own particular problems.

Track Listing 1. Jesus To A Child
2. Fastlove
3. Older
4. Spinning The Wheel
5. It Doesn't Really Matter
6. The Strangest Thing
7. To Be Forgiven
8. Move On
9. Star People
10. You Have Been Loved
11. Free