The pleasant folk rock of 10,000 Maniacs was never what you would call hard-hitting. Yet it's still surprising that Tigerlily, Natalie Merchant's first solo album, sounds so bloodless and limp. Merchant's voice – childlike and oft imitated – has nearly deteriorated into self-parody, as if it's too much effort for her to enunciate a phrase, hold a note or even breathe. The production, by Merchant herself, sounds remarkably flat, so spare and downbeat that it's narcotizing. Does she think that too much instrumentation – too much music – will steal the focus away from the Very Important things she has to say?

"San Andreas Fault," the album's first cut, is the kind of trite California-as-par-adise-or-hell song the Eagles specialize in, though without a trace of their self-deprecating sense of humor. Here's yet another tale of a young hopeful who goes out West to be a star only to discover that they have earthquakes out there. "Terracotta shattered, and the walls came tumbling down," Merchant sings in the song's climactic moment with apparently unintended hilarity. "O promised land/O wicked ground/Build a dream/And tear it down."

In a similar vein, "River" is a lugubrious tribute to River Phoenix. "This star fell down on Sunset Boulevard," Merchant sings with no hint of irony before commanding, "Let the youth of America mourn/Include him in their prayers." She goes on to excoriate the "vultures" who exploited his death, but it's hard to envision anything more exploitative than this treacly song, with its brazenly heart-tugging line "I saw children in tears." Far more satisfying are the two cuts that actually have tempos, unlike many songs on the album. "Jealousy" is a jaunty pop song reminiscent of 10,000 Maniacs, and "Carnival" bubbles along nicely, thanks, right down to its Latin-rock groove (reheated Santana, basically).

But those moments pass by all too quickly. With its surfeit of blindly self-obsessed lyrics and lulling lite-rock arrangements, the bulk of Tigerlily provides a perfect soundtrack for the Prozac nation. (RS 711)

AL WEISEL