By: Peter Blackstock (section: What's Happening Page: 10)

Unplanned pregnancies. Government scandals. Poverty. Environmental disasters.

Not exactly the stuff of which pop songs are usually made, but those are some of the topics 10,000 Maniacs tackled on its 1989 album Blind Man's Zoo. It was the followup to the group's 1987 breakthrough album In My Tribe, which sold more than a million copies.

Our Time in Eden, the newest from the Jamestown, N.Y., band, strikes a more comfortable balance between singer/lyricist Natalie Merchant's desire to write relevant lyrics and the band's penchant for beautiful pop melodies. Not that Merchant has gotten complacent: There are still messages in the music, particularly on the single Candy Everybody Wants, which questions society's thirst for sex and violence in entertainment.

But as the album title suggests, the band - which plays a sold-out show Sunday at the Paramount Theatre - has come to terms with its success. Songs such as These Are Days and Eden acknowledge the subtle beauties the world brings every day, accepting that it's OK to bask in those golden moments once in a while.

The new album is brighter musically as well, thanks in part to expanded instrumentation. Guitarist Robert Buck embellishes several songs with sitar, banjo, pedal steel and mandocello, while James Brown's horn section provides a boost on two tracks.

"There were a couple of songs that just sounded like they needed horns, but it was (producer) Paul Fox's suggestion to get the James Brown horns," Buck said in a telephone interview. He added that a horn section is accompanying the band on tour, as is former Camper Van Beethoven violinist Morgan Fichter.

Buck's multi-instrumental contributions reflect the growing role he has had in shaping the group's sound since the departure of guitarist John Lombardo in 1986. Lombardo had been one of the band's primary songwriters, but Buck helped pick up the slack considerably on In My Tribe by writing the music to four of the album's best songs.

Ironically, Lombardo's departure may have been a key to the Maniacs' jump to the mainstream. Buck's more streamlined playing helped the group shift away from its folk-rock origins and toward a contemporary pop sound that focused on Merchant's singing.

Her distinctive voice and captivating stage presence have since become the band's trademark; indeed, Merchant is the only widely recognized member of the band. When "Rolling Stone" ran a recent story on the Maniacs, Merchant's mug alone graced the cover.

Though the public focuses on Merchant, Buck contends that the music would sound decidedly different if she were operating on her own.>