by: Colin Irwin

A garage band from New York State, 10,000 Maniacs made their name in the Eighties with provocative songs in a rarefied indie rock environment and an unfashionable interest in folk and country music. Not without reasonable success either - the brooding, even painful intensity of Natalie Merchant's songs contrasted powerfully with the band's upbeat energy on stage to build a formidable following.

Their last three albums were all minor masterpieces, but constant touring took its toll and at the end of '89 they took time out to go away and get married, have babies and buy houses... the sort of things normal people do.

But as everyone knows, normality is grossly overrated and at the arse end of '92, 10,000 Maniacs come roaring back batteries recharged with a vibrant new album Our Time In Eden. Natalie Merchant couldn't be normal for long. "We hadn't seen each other for a while, so we sat around and talked. We hadn't really done that before. It gave us a better understanding of ourselves and music and Our Time In Eden is basically a result of that."

It may even dispel Natalie's image as a young lady in a state of perpetual depression. It had never occurred to her that the main ingredient of her song-writing was human misery until the rest of the band (Robert Buck, Steven Gustafson, Jerry Augustyniak and Dennis Drew) pointed it out at one of their truth sessions. The result is that she's allowed her writing to be more influenced by the music supplied by the rest of the band rather than simply going off on her own desperate tangents and Our Time In Eden is a generally happier album for all concerned as a result.

Upbeat and personable herself, Merchant admits to grave problems dealing with the conflict of marrying her concerns for the environment with the ecologically unsound rock lifestyle.