I don't want to be 'Saint Bob,' because halos get heavy and they rust very easily, and I know I have feet of clay because my socks stink." So said Bob Geldof to Rolling Stone in 1985, shortly after his good works as the organizer of Band Aid and Live Aid turned him into a widely revered figure.

Geldof – the leader of the late great Irish New Wave band the Boomtown Rats – was savvy enough to realize that the attention coming his way for his charitable efforts was not necessarily going to help his musical career. Indeed, his uneven first solo album, 1986's Deep in the Heart of Nowhere, suffered from Geldof's failure to live up to the expectation that he ought to say something terribly important to the world he'd helped to feed.

The good news is that on the loose and often lovely album The Vegetarians of Love, Geldof smartly forgoes playing the role of savior and gets back to making music. "The Great Song of Indifference" even tweaks Geldof's earnest persona. A highly ironic anthem of apathy, the song features Geldof proclaiming, "I can watch whole nations die" and "I don't care if the Third World fries," to a tune that suggests Bob Dylan singing a sunny Irish jig.

In fact, much of The Vegetarians of Love finds Geldof following the musical recipes of Dylan and Van Morrison, with a dash of Cajun spice added for extra flavor. Traditional instruments like the ukulele, the penny whistle and the accordion stand on an equal footing with the guitar on this homey album. The songs themselves are the strongest Geldof has come up with since the Rats' third album, The Fine Art of Surfacing. "Love or Something" is a likable piece of Irish rockabilly; "Walking Back to Happiness" is a Dire Straits-like number that Mark Knopfler would be proud to call his own; and "A Rose at Night" captures Geldof at his most delicate and romantic.

Not everything works – "Thinking Voyager 2 Type Things" is particularly weak – but ultimately, Geldof's senses of musicality and humor save The Vegetarians of Love. In general, bob Geldof sounds a lot better freed of the weight of the world. (RS 586)

DAVID WILD