Pure (1992)

There's nothing ''pure'' about Midge Ure: Ever since he joined the late-'70s techno-pop band Ultravox, thus rendering it far less experimental, his presence on a project has been more like a pollutant — the water in the whiskey, as it were. On Pure, his third solo album, Ure maintains his command of a seemingly deathless idiom that might be called slick English modern rock. Songs like ''I See Hope in the Morning Light'' and ''Sweet 'N' Sensitive Thing'' combine the lightest-weight electronic rhythms possible with Ure's irritatingly melodramatic voice — he's the last of the new-wave yodelers — in order to express earnestly a bunch of ho-hum sentiments about luv (such as ''I need delight to feed my soul tonight,'' from ''Hands Around My Heart''). Given their intense banality, these songs are all way too long — few are under four minutes, several are well over five. ''Filler'' doesn't even begin to describe it: Pure should be renamed Contaminated and buried in the city dump. D+