For the Beauty of Wynona

While it displays its author’s trademark atmospherics in abundance, For the Beauty of Wynona is a much more direct album than its predecessors. While Daniel Lanois is rightly famous for being able to generate melodies and rhythms from nothing more than the moisture in the air, songs like “Brother L.A.,” “Still Learning How to Crawl,” and “Lotta Love to Give” have a grit and propulsion that was a new look for Lanois. Rather than construct songs in layers, as one might paint on canvas, Lanois worked with a live band for Wynona, which gives the performances an old-fashioned spontaneity. As always, Lanois’ past collaborators left their mark on this work, and in the songs one hears reflections of U2 (“Waiting”), Bob Dylan (“Rocky World,” “The Unbreakable Chain”), and The Neville Brothers (“Indian Red”). At the foundation is American roots music: folk, country, and blues. The pleasure of Wynona is the way it combines otherworldly ambiance with the pared-down song structures of R&B, generating standouts like “The Messenger,” “Death of a Train,” and “Sleeping in the Devil’s Bed.”