Music: The Heads Are Rolling

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The melodies on Little Creatures, released a couple of months ago and cruising into the upper regions of the charts, are all smooth sailing. Eric Weissberg, of Dueling Banjos fame, even puts in a guest appearance, playing a steel guitar on Creatures of Love that makes it sound like an Eagles tune. There is a Cajun accordion on Road to Nowhere and enough unashamed tunesmithing all around to set toes to tapping and get the Top 40 a little loosened up.

Almost. The record begins with And She Was, about a woman who levitates above her backyard and propels herself off into the universe, a voyage that is presented with no more wonderment than a trip down to the 7-Eleven. Road to Nowhere, which ends the second side, has the title of a Sunday sermon and the rhythm of an Acadian barn dance but turns out to be an unabashed paean to nihilism: "Well we know where we're goin'/ But we don't know where we've been/ And we know what we're knowin'/ But we can't say what we've seen . . . We're on a road to nowhere/ Come on inside."

The record sounds like sunshine and turns out to be a tonic rebuke to solid values and positive thinking. "Well, I've seen sex and I think it's okay" goes the unsolicited but unimpassioned testimonial in Creatures of Love, one of two songs on the album that are about children. Like the visionary folk art that decorates the record sleeve, these two tunes about little ones impart a deceptively cozy air that is undercut with a keen sardonic edge. "We are . . . creatures of love/ From the sleep of reason" is the way the refrain runs, and Little Creatures becomes an extended lullaby for rationality. This may not guarantee the record a lingering chart life, but it is rock at its most enterprising and numinous.