The good news is, the lyrics on R.E.M. [ tickets ]'s latest album, "Around the Sun," are some of the band's best in recent years. The bad? There's much more to a song than the words.

The album starts promisingly enough. The first single, "Leaving New York"--though sounding, like much here, eerily familiar--does grow on you, and it's followed by several post-9/11-inspired songs that make the band's biggest political statements in more than a decade. With their subtle, but incisive jabs, "Final Straw" and "I Wanted to be Wrong" must be set-pieces for the band's Vote for Change appearances: "Who died and lifted you up to perfection? / And what silenced me is written into law." And these tunes, along with the Beatles-y "Wanderlust," develop a mellow, yet provocative, mood.

But for longtime R.E.M. fans waiting (as they have been for several albums now) for something to grab on to, the melodies are, for the most part, unmemorable. The later songs tend to blend together, the lyrics less poignant and more diffused (when my iPod defiantly played the last half of the album first as I drove on a slow-moving freeway, it could easily have caused a drowse-induced collision).

Members of R.E.M. have said their recent work is more about conveying a current moment in time than creating something timeless--but it's doubtful they want listeners to forget their songs minutes after they hear them. We can only hope that the inspiration and depth that hit Michael Stipe's lyrics this time around will carry over into the music of future songs and make them do more than just float by.