Like a filmmaker using light, Daniel Lanois maneuvers sound to serve atmosphere; his songs are aural movies, etched with razor-sharp guitars, muted trumpets, church bells, cracking snares. Mood music of a rich, sad intensity, For the Beauty of Wynona follows his 1989 debut, Acadie, in establishing Lanois as a true auteur – even while he draws from a range of roots, he sounds like no one else.

This is all the more a feat considering that Lanois is best known for shaping other people's visions. As producer for U2, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel and Robbie Robertson, he revealed not only an intuitive musical intelligence but a generous spirit – his touch never obscured the artists' personalities. On his own, however, and with his guitar to the fore, his work gains unity: Their tempos seldom speeding past an insinuating lope, Wynona's thirteen songs blend seamlessly, held together by the husky urgency of Lanois's singing and the depth of his feeling.

Filled with yearning and regret, this album ultimately is about passions so strong, inspiring and dangerous that melodies trickier than the beautifully simple ones Lanois uses would ruin the effect. And the playing, too, by a five-man outfit highlighted by keyboardist-guitarist Malcolm Burn, is brilliantly spare. Bursts of virtuosity (Hendrix-like fireworks on "Brother L.A.") keep things intriguing, but the overall sound is ambient, an intricate, subtle backdrop for the emotions Lanois conveys.

Confessions of nervous souls, Lanois's lyrics match his music in suggestiveness. In close rooms, his characters wait for "love to come with its sting" ("The Unbreakable Chain"); tense, they "almost touch heaven" ("The Messenger"). Combining metaphors of loss ("I don't ride your train no more," from "Death of a Train") and desperation ("I will crawl to your foothill," from "The Messenger"), Lanois writes as a fierce romantic, one who is hip to how desire always brings thorns with its rose. At their finest, his words read like dark, erotic psalms: "Beatrice, I like your smile/Makes me want to own you/O.K., just for a while, then/Before they stone you/Tell me, how do you speak to God?" he sings on "Beatrice." And yet his eye for detail catches hope as well as desperation: "Would you build me a building, a chapel out there/At the top of the hill in the still blue air?/Near the weather vane, by the tracks and train/I'll be looking for you in the rocky world" ("Rocky World").

Wise and gorgeous, then, Lanois's music and words fuse jagged beauty and edgy truths – artfully, he makes sounds that matter. (RS 657)

PAUL EVANS