Wendy & Lisa ‎- White Flags Of Winter Chimneys (2008)

Since their '80s heyday as "Purple Rain" bit players and members of Prince's Revolution, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman have receded into that musical netherworld reserved for ex-Prince proteges. They've carved out a more-than-respectable existence as session musicians (Madonna, Gwen Stefani) and TV show scorers ("Heroes"), but their own recording career has been a slow starter.

"White Flags of Winter Chimneys" (which takes its name from a lyric in Joni Mitchell's "Hejira") is Wendy and Lisa's first disc in 10 years, though the duo's internal musical clock seems to have stopped sometime in 1996. Anyone nostalgic for the blazing funk of the Revolution, or even the muted jazz-pop of Wendy and Lisa's 1987 debut, might as well stop reading right here: "White Flags" is an atmospheric pop album with an Enya-at-Lilith-Fair vibe. It's equal parts keyboard-heavy New Age and girlie folk, with detours into punk light and extended instrumental suites.

"White Flags" can be thin: It's impeccably arranged and adeptly played, with Wendy and Lisa's by-now-standard close harmonies and unconventional chord changes, but also weirdly enervated. It lacks hooks and purpose. The disc fares best when it sticks to relatively unadorned light rock: "Salt & Cherries (MC5)" recalls, if only vaguely, the duo's forays into knife-edged punk/funk; "Invisible" is a breathy, sluggishly tempoed pop track with a tantalizing opening verse: "Why don't you see/The light you had because of me/When you were mine?" It may not be about Prince, but they wouldn't mind if you thought it was.