by: Dave Ferman Fort (NY Times News Service)

[webmaster note: a slightly longer version of this article is the article from the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram].

Balance has always been a big part of the appeal of 10,000 Maniacs: The contrast between the light, lovely voice of Natalie Merchant over the band's pleasant folk-pop and what she's singing about (which on past CDs has included child abuse, illiteracy and South Africa) has always been a very alluring aspect of the Maniacs' music, sort of like having the main course and the dessert at the same time and finding it enjoyable.

Our Time in Eden, the band's first CD of new music since 1989's Blind Man's Zoo, carries on this tradition: Mingling with gorgeous, lilting songs (that often include strings or horns) that evoke childhood reveries and summertime (These Are Days and Stockton Gala Days) are stark tales of pain and losses large and small. In Jezebel, a wife tortures herself over her feelings of a failing marriage; being overwhelmed by an intolerant society pervades (Tolerance); and on the final track, I'm Not the Man, an innocent man faces the gallows.

But besides continuing the balancing act between light and dark shadings, says drummer Jerry Augustyniak, Our Time in Eden is a major change for the band in how the songs were written and what the Maniacs were trying to achieve musically.

"We wanted to come off the beaten trail, the folk-rock path, and try something more swirling and sonic," he says. "We never attempted to write as a band before. Someone would come in with a riff or what-have-you. We were just trying to come up with the best songs we could, and we'd try anything.

"Stockton, Eden and Circle Dream were all written as a band -- sometimes it meant picking a key and jamming for 45 minutes or whatever. We've got reams of tapes that could be soundtracks for the next three "Apocalypse Now" movies. We tried to split the difference between that organic method and people coming in with chord progressions."

Maybe it's because the band originally formed in 1981 in the tiny burg of Jamestown in upstate New York, but there's always been more of a pastoral, gentle feeling to the Maniacs' music. And the songs on Eden, Augustyniak says, "reflect the changing of seasons -- Days and Stockton were written in the spring and I'm Not the Man was written in the winter in Jamestown."

Ah, yes. Back to I'm Not the Man, perhaps the darkest song on Eden. In a recent Musician interview, Merchant said that that song and Tolerance prompted "some discussion among band members" that perhaps both songs were "just too dark for the album."

Asked about this, Augustyniak says that Merchant has always written somber, sober lyrics and that, "lyrically, we're not the most upbeat band in the world. She's trying, anyway. Tolerance is dark but upbeat at the same time. The lyrics come toward the end of the process, and we knew she had the idea for Jezebel. It's very intense and powerful and so is I'm Not the Man. But it's more brooding where Jezebel is a scream, a sonic scream. Blind Man's Zoo -- I think that album works but it's really dark. A lot of those songs were leftovers from the In My Tribe sessions -- it wasn't the best time in our career. There was a lot of tension in the band and a lot of frustration in coming up with ideas. We've tried to be more upbeat."

Work on Our Time in Eden ended early in the summer, and the band was rehearsing for its fall tour when Augustyniak broke his collarbone while riding his bike just as rehearsals were due to begin.

"It was Aug. 20 and I was in traffic and I got cocky and wasn't looking where I was going and I clipped this guy's rear-view mirror," he says. "I was going fairly quickly and fell on my left shoulder. I was dazed for a minute and just sat on the curb going, 'Oh no. . . not this.' They brought in another drummer for September -- the band did three benefits and did six or seven gigs around them. But I escaped serious complications. It was a clean break and it healed in about four weeks."