PATTI SMITH—Radio Ethiopia (Arista):: Horses was almost too skeletal; Ethiopia is almost too meaty. I personally have never listened to an Aerosmith album beyond a few bars, but this guy Jack Douglas sure knows how to get a drum sound. Too bad Patti gets treated like another instrument in the mix... is that why she nearly delivers a lyric sheet with this LP? Picturing Harry Crosby's opium pipe could be looked at either as a departure (from Crosby's self-destruct coy posturing), or as an indulgence (in the worst sense of Crosby's "legacy"). Given the 14-odd minutes of "Ethiopia/Abyssinia", the latter would seem to be the sad fact...redeemed, with too-brief, glory, but the all-out BLAST of the rockers that lead off sides one and t\yo; nothing has kicked me in the teeth so hard since "Search and Destroy." Patti's got the notion and the capability (and the band) to draw blood from stones; when she takes full rein of it, you're gonna swim or drown, believe me. Maybe third time out. P.L.

CRACK THE SKY-Animal Notes (Lifesong):^ promising band who continue to promise more than they deliver. While beyond stealing Dan riffs, their best stuff uses the Fagan-Becker chainsaw to the chin technique, substituting ag-f gressive intelligence for the usual emotional contact. But too often they hedge their bets or push poor ideas too far; it'll take more consistency for these guys to crack the charts, much less thesky. M.D.