Record Review

Another Day on Earth is Brian Eno's first solo album of vocal songs since 1977's Before and After Science. Eno has since channeled his pop/rock music inspiration into production work for artists like David Bowie, U2, and Talking Heads. His solo output has focused on instrumentals like 1997's The Drop, countless ambient soundscapes, and experimental oddities like 2003's January 07003, a 15-track CD featuring nothing but electronically simulated church bells.

Another Day on Earth bears little resemblance to the deconstructed glam and off-kilter art funk that characterized his '70s rock albums. Instead, it sounds as if Eno took his ambient recordings from the '80s and '90s and crafted songs on top of them. The album's closest cousin is 1990's Wrong Way Up, Eno's rock collaboration with former Velvet Underground member John Cale. The two albums largely share the same instrumental palette, with Another Day on Earth opener "This" that sounds like the more insistent, less exuberant fraternal twin of Wrong Way Up's "Spinning Away."

With its heavily treated vocals and chilled pace, the album is more mood piece than joy ride. Even when the rhythms get funky, like on "Just Another Day" and "Under," the groove is obscured in a blanket of synth ambience.

The album jettisons serenity for its startling finale, "Bone Bomb," the most wrenching and provocative piece Eno has ever recorded. Spoken by a female guest vocalist, "Bone Bomb" imagines the final thoughts of a female Palestinian suicide bomber, ending, "I waited for peace. And here is my piece, here in this still, last moment of my life."