All new, heard-it- all-before Eagles

Think of

Long Road Out of Eden

, the Eagles' first all-new album in nearly three decades, as a greatest-hits album, only without the hits. Sounding essentially like a well-tuned tribute band, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmidt (augmented by a passel of session men) revisit their best-selling sounds of yesteryear with dispassionate professionalism.

"How Long," the first single, so closely mirrors the honky-tonk strut of "Already Gone" that a casual listener might easily mistake one for the other, which is, of course, the point. Turn that up - it sounds like the Eagles!

Spanning two discs and 20 tracks, Long Road (released today) is a poorly sequenced mishmash of styles. "Fast Company" apes the thudding funk of Henley's "Dirty Laundry," "Last Good Time in Town" mimics the lazy lope of Walsh's solo hits, and "I Don't Want to Hear Any More" evokes the easy-listening ooze of late-'70s Bee Gees. (People still like them, right?) The music's surface is frictionless, but underneath is a desperate bid to touch as many demographic bases as possible.

Long Road has plenty of the Eagles' stock in trade, party's-over songs like "Waiting in the Weeds." But elsewhere the world-weariness turns sour, particularly when Henley is behind the microphone. Evidently outraged by the state of the world, he takes aim at the folly of empire on the album's 10-minute title track, striking out at SUV-driving fat cats "having lunch at the Petroleum Club, smoking fine cigars and swapping lies."

"Frail Grasp on the Big Picture" takes a swipe at "good ol' boys" who "think they know it all." And "Business as Usual" laments, "We worship at the marketplace while common sense is going out of style."

Henley's targets are big enough that he scores a few hits, but it's hard to swallow his attacks on American obliviousness when his ire is couched in such vague generalities. (Mercifully, "I Dreamed There Was No War" is an instrumental.)

Given that Long Road is being sold only at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club (and their Mac-unfriendly download service), the band can't entirely be accused of preaching to the converted. But railing at the heathens isn't likely to win anyone over, and one can only imagine how listeners expecting the Eagles' smooth sounds will react to a lecture in four-part harmony.