ALMOND JOY, BLUE GENE.

The import bins are an increasingly important resource for gay and lesbian music lovers looking for old and new favorite artists such as Marc Almond and Gene

As major labels consolidate and shed their rosters of everyone but best-sellers and prestige acts, lesbian and gay music listeners--already a resourceful bunch--will need to become even more creative when tracking down something besides Cher and Melissa. The current pop explosion has done wonders for divas and homoerotic harmonizers, but there's more to gay taste than what fits into a size 3 evening gown or a 28-inch-waist pair of baggy-butt jeans.

As lead singer of Soft Cell, Marc Almond was a major face on the early '80s synth-pop wave of ambiguous boys in frocks and leather harnesses. Even on the indefatigable "Tainted Love" (recently remixed by Club 69 to celebrate the long-awaited domestic CD release of the Soft Cell's classics), Almond was the personification of trash and drama--qualities that have characterized his ever-changing catalog for almost 20 years. Considering that the last time new Almond material hit American shores was in '91, you better not wait for his new U.K. album Open All Night to show up at Sam Goody.

This exotic and erotic trip-hop cabaret explores familiar Almond themes--nocturnal adventure, fatal attraction, and irrational faith in the power of love, or at least sex, but its subversive melodic surfaces make possible an even greater payoff of intimacy and danger. Violins dance across shuffling beats; accordions, harmonicas, and various organs suggest clandestine rendezvous on the wrong but ever-so-right side of the tracks. Duets with ex-Sneaker Pimp Kelli Dayton on "Almost Diamonds" and ex-Banshee Siouxsie Sioux on "Threat of Love" aren't the only highlights: The entire album feels like the sound track to the gutter opera Almond was destined to stage.

Gene is another Anglo act that's followed its own muse. For Revelations, rather than jumping on the electronica bandwagon, the group has dropped the lush orchestrations now in vogue to bang out traditional American rock. The first track, "As Good as It Gets," suggests Bruce Springsteen, while the last one, "You'll Never Walk Again," begins with the tortured tenderness of earlier triumphs, then builds to a nasty guitar crescendo.

Between these dubious bookends are plenty of forgettable songs amped up with tacky power chords and stridently sociological lyrics. The harder delivery tramples whatever subtlety is left of bisexual singer Martin Rossiter's poetry, and his new political observations aren't nearly as wise as his previous personal confessions. The bittersweet homo longings of "Olympian" and "We Could Be Kings" are gone, replaced by odes to new father Rossiter's "Little Child."

Halfway through the murk pops one terrific tune, "Something in the Water," which not coincidentally skips along like the Smiths' "This Charming Man," but the rest suggests the Goo Goo Dolls' bland bombast. Since Gene and its American record label have gone their separate ways, this sellout isn't exactly ingenious.

Walters is a pop-music critic for The Advocate.