** 1/2 KATE BUSH”The Red Shoes” ColumbiaThis...

** 1/2 KATE BUSH

“The Red Shoes”

Columbia

This sense of humour of mine / It isn’t funny at all . Even Bush’s most ardent supporters must agree with this couplet from the reclusive British singer’s first album in four years. No one has ever put a Bush album on looking for a good laugh (except perhaps those who enjoy poking fun at her occasionally self-serious artistry and daffy intellectualism).

And that’s precisely what makes “Rubberband Girl,” the leadoff track on this album, so refreshing. Bush is making a joke! From the conception--an (unwitting?) play on the Spinners’ 1976 hit “Rubberband Man”--to the execution--an appropriately bouncy romp that at one point features Bush wailing like a cat caught in a washing machine--the song displays a charming, hitherto hidden side of the artist.

Her longtime fans needn’t worry, however--there’s plenty of the more rigid but nevertheless seductive music they’ve grown to expect. “The Song of Solomon” is a slow, pretty tale of passion unrequited, and “Why Should I Love You,” despite guest Prince’s best efforts to funk it up, meanders in an attractively docile way.

“The Red Shoes” (much of which will be featured in a film Bush has written and directed and is also starring in with Miranda Richardson, called “The Line, the Cross, the Curve”) may not be Bush’s most enjoyable album--the Gothic stuff grows wearying after a while--but at least the joke’s on us. New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).