by: Paul Verna

NEW YORK-The first surprise for 10,000 Maniacs fans awaiting the group's latest Elektra Entertainment album, Our Time In Eden, will be the appearance of the James Brown horn section on two tracks.

Like a clarion call, the horns herald a new phase for the quirky quintet, spicing up two tracks on the record: Few And Far Between, the probable second single; and Candy Everybody Wants, a snide commentary on the public's hunger for all things vacuous or lurid.

Followers of the Maniacs will find other novel elements on the new album. For one, Natalie Merchant, the group's enigmatic lead singer and chief songwriter, is now playing piano on several tracks, including the opening cut, Noah's Dove, which is driven by an eerie, single-note keyboard line.

Merchant credits producer Paul Fox with persuading her to try her hand at the keyboard. "I always had the little sister syndrome - you know, you can't play football with us, you're not big enough," she says. "Whether the band ever said that or not, I always felt that that's the way it was. But he encouraged me to do it. He coached me a lot, too; he helped me."

The choice of Fox itself represents a new turn for the band. In contrast to longtime Maniacs producer Peter Asher - who is best known for working with singer/songwriters like Linda Rondstadt - Fox wanted to emphasize the band," Merchant says. "He wanted to make the band more powerful so that my voice could just find its place on top of that."

Fox's stamp is evident throughout, but particularly on songs where the surface sheen of the band's past work gives way to an intimate sound where every instrument is heard clearly and the vocals assert their place in the mix without the help of studio wizardry.

Concordant with the group's musical maturation is an evolution in Merchant's lyrics, which for many fans are the linchpin of the band's identity. Instead of using her songs as platforms to attack society's ills as she has in the past, Merchant has acquired a new subtlety, a spirituality that is reflected in the album's title and in many of its songs.

"This time, I paid more attention to what the music was saying emotionally to me rather than what the present bee in my bonnet was that I wanted to talk about. That's what I used to do," says Merchant.

A byproduct of Merchant's new approach is the emergence of abstract subject matter in the lyrics. The track Eden, rich with garden imagery that bespeaks Merehant's admitted fascination with springtime, articulates a frustration with the passage of time: "The clock is another demon that devours our time in Eden, in our Paradise," she sings.

Focusing on the abstract "gave me a little more freedom to be less issue conscious and discuss the human condition from a really intimate, almost philosophical point of view," says Merchant.

Still, the singer's Time In Eden is not spent entirely without addressing issues with a "capital 'I'," as Merchant puts it.

The song I'm Not The Man is a tale of mistaken identity inspired by cases of death-row inmates who insisted - and in some cases proved - that they were innocent of the crimes for which they were sentenced.

"I have the opportunity occasionally to have the attention of some young and fertile minds," she says, "and to plant a seed like that - people are being executed in this country who may be innocent - isn't that a terrifying thought? Think about that. Be aware of that, and next time you're exposed to any information about it, be a little more interested in it."

Such an eclectic mix of songs and sounds, as exciting as it is to Merchant and the rest of the band, represents a considerable challenge for Elektra, which is taking pains to "convince retail that the band is still viable," according to David Bither, the label's VP of marketing and creative services.

While 10,000 Maniacs' 1987 breakthrough album, In My Tribe, sold 1.2 million units in the U.S., the group's follow-up, Blind Man's Zoo, fell short at 800,000 copies.

Nevertheless, Bither says he is confident the group's longtime fans have not forgotten about it. "They reached a place in people's hearts that made them one of the most significant American bands to have emerged in the last five to 10 years," he says. "Their place in people's hearts has not vanished."

First single These Are Days went to alternative radio Sept. 7 and will be serviced to top 40 outlets Oct. 5 and album rock and AC stations Oct. 12.

Bither estimates that Elektra will ship 250,000-400,000 units of the album, which will be in stores Sept. 29.