Poetry atop 'Bells"

Releasing a new album must be an incredibly stressful ordeal for someone like Brian Eno, whose latest album will always be compared to the classic works he created in the 1970s and 80s.

Remarkably, Eno has managed to overcome that pressure with “Drums Between the Bells.” “Drums” is almost certainly going to be labeled “that spoken-word album,” and it’s not a completely inaccurate description.

Eno uses the words of poet Rick Holland to accompany his songs, but they’re not treated as standard poetry recitations.

Instead, Eno processes many of the vocals to make them sound robotic and distanced. He even occasionally manipulates the pitches of the words to create an artificial form of singing.

The album opens with “Bless This Space,” which finds Eno intoning disconnected words over a surprisingly jazzy and funky track. It’s one of the more active and fun songs Eno has written in recent years.

The album quickly changes its mood with “Glitch,” which is based around computerized beats. The song is pulled off well here, but later attempts at writing beats feel dated.

If the album misses, it’s because it treats the words secondary to the music. Perhaps if Eno hadn’t played around with the voices so much, Rick Holland’s work might have been more approachable.

Instead, much of the poetry gets lost in the mix.

Still, “Drums Between the Bells” is a strong album and works well with last year’s excellent “Small Craft on a Milk Sea.”  It’s nice to see Brian Eno trying his hand again at something resembling songs.