A friend of mine e-mailed me this week to tell me her father died. A couple of days after that, another friend called me to tell me she just got back from her grandmother’s funeral. There’s something unnatural about the sheer amount of death we’ve seen this year. I’ve written far too much about it in the past few months, and I’m tired of having to. Only two weeks until we can bid this awful year goodbye.

But it’s fitting, somehow, that this, my final new review of 2003, is about Johnny Cash. Cash was another victim of 2003, passing away in September at age 71. I’m finding as I arrange my thoughts for this piece that, just as I have no authoritative voice on death, I have no similar voice on Johnny Cash. His loss seems impossible – it’s almost like his legend and his presence transcend the idea of a frail human form to house them.

There just aren’t enough superlatives for Cash, but here are a few anyway. Some may call him a singer, and in fact he referred to himself as such, but what he brought to the songs he graced with his voice was so much more. Cash inhabited songs, like few others could do – he brought depth, power and layers of meaning and feeling to virtually any lyric, simply by being Johnny Cash. The great Cash songs always centered around the same conflict evident in his persona – the troubled, often violent man crawling his way along the road to redemption. Cash lived this so completely that one can feel the eternal struggle in every word he sang.

Cash was always surprising people. This was the guy, after all, who found some of his most receptive audiences behind the walls of prisons. One can lazily type him as a country singer, given that he was a member of the Grand Old Opry, but he lived far beyond the limits of genre restrictions. He was folk, rock, pop, blues, and any other idiom he chose, but everything he did came out sounding like Johnny Cash, labels be damned.

And leave it to senior-citizen Cash to save his biggest surprise for the end. Certainly no one expected the kind of creative and popular career revival Cash has seen in the past decade. It’s largely thanks to a remarkable partnership with American Records honcho Rick Rubin, best known for his work with the likes of Slayer and the Beastie Boys. Rubin has a knack for producing artists so that the result sounds definitive, as if he can isolate and replicate the way those musicians always wished they could sound. His plan for Cash was astoundingly simple – get Johnny, an acoustic guitar, a microphone and a bunch of songs together in his living room, record a stark live document, and then promote it with all the respect Cash’s legend deserves.

Thus began the American Recordings series, an amazing set of four albums that cast Cash as an interpreter of just about anything. In addition to old blues and gospel standards, Cash covered such unlikely sources as Soundgarden, Danzig, U2 and Sting on these records, with mostly incredible results. His version of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” gave him his first bona fide hit in ages, scored him several award nominations (fueled by a raw and beautiful video by Mark Romanek), and made him stunningly relevant to a modern audience. In Cash’s hands, the song was transformed from merely heartfelt to positively shattering, a collapse of worlds in three minutes.

Cash’s death came mid-project. He and Rubin had been working on the fifth American record, and Cash had finished demos of roughly 50 songs. Additionally, Rubin had assembled a box set of outtakes and new recordings to celebrate 10 years of their partnership, and he had just sent the CDs to Cash for review when he succumbed. That box set is called Unearthed, and while it was never intended as a memorial, it serves as a fitting capstone, not just to the last 10 years of Cash’s creative revitalization, but to his grand career as a whole.

Unearthed is divided into five CDs and housed in a gorgeous cloth-bound book design in an embossed slipcase. Even in shape and design, it looks like a monument, and the music inside is no less monolithic. Here we have three discs of unreleased outtakes from the American sessions, a new album of spirituals and an admittedly unnecessary but still worthy compilation of the best tracks from the four American albums. All together, it’s 79 songs, and not one is not worth hearing. Everything that was ever great about Johnny Cash is represented in this box, and it’s no wonder it takes five CDs to hold it all.

Starting from the beginning: Who’s Gonna Cry is the first volume of outtakes, taken from the live acoustic sessions for American Recordings. If you liked that one, this disc is blessedly more of the same, with more of a focus on classic songs like “Long Black Veil” and “Waiting For a Train.” Cash excelled in this setting, just the man and his guitar, and it’s here that one can best hear the power of his voice. When Cash sings, it’s like hearing the voice of music itself. But the best moments are the faltering, human ones. When he gets to the title phrase, in his own “The Caretaker,” it’s chilling: “Who’s gonna cry when old John dies,” he sings, and one can’t help but think on Cash’s own mortality.

Cash’s second American album, Unchained, hooked him up with an ideal backing band – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Though several other musicians, including the Red Devils, make contributions, it’s the Heartbreakers who bring the best stuff to Trouble In Mind, the second disc here. The emphasis is on blues rock, and Lord, are these performances amazing. Just a few highlights: Carl Perkins guests on Chuck Berry’s “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man” and his own “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby,” Cash stomps his way through an unadorned reading of Steve Earle’s “Devil’s Right Hand,” he reinvents Neil Young’s signature “Heart of Gold,” and he makes Jimmie Rodgers’ “T For Texas” his own.

The most affecting of these recordings, however, has to be his duet with his late wife, June Carter Cash, on his own “As Long As the Grass Shall Grow.” It’s a lovely song of eternal devotion, recorded not long before June’s death, and their two voices playing off of each other is heartbreaking. That alone is worth the price of Unearthed.

But wait, there’s more. The third volume, Redemption Songs, is the only one that feels like a selection of outtakes, so diverse is the track listing. Cash duets with the late Joe Strummer of the Clash on Bob Marley’s title tune, and if you can imagine that, you’ll have no problem with the rest of this. Cash soars on Jimmy Webb’s great “Wichita Lineman,” rocks through traditional tune “Salty Dog,” puts his stamp on Stephen Foster’s immortal “Hard Times Come Again No More,” and invites Glen Campbell to the mic for a read of “Gentle On My Mind.” Most surprising here is a stark version of “You Are My Sunshine,” which emphasizes the incredible darkness at the song’s center. That all of these tunes can exist on one CD serves as proof that typing Cash as a country artist is simple laziness.

As grand as everything that precedes it is, the capper here is disc four, My Mother’s Hymn Book. The last real album Cash completed, this is a collection of 15 hymns taken quite literally from a book owned by his mother. The versions are naked and passionate, featuring only Cash and his guitar, and it only takes one or two songs to realize that he’s singing from his very soul here, perhaps more so than on any of his previous works. Cash’s music has long been about striving for redemption, and it’s fitting that his final recordings center on that redemption, wholly and completely. This is deceptively simple, yet quite powerful stuff.

And if disc five, The Best of Cash on American, is superfluous, it also serves as a fine reminder of just how lucky we’ve been to witness this resurgence from one of America’s icons. Opening with “Delia’s Gone,” a great Cash original, the disc brings us through some of the riskier choices Cash has made recently, all of which paid off beautifully. His take on Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage” is a revelation, as are versions of U2’s “One” and Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man.” “I Hung My Head” was Sting’s attempt at writing a Johnny Cash song, so his reclaiming it here is only natural, and the result is superb. And though “The Man Comes Around” was one of the last songs Cash wrote, it’s a quintessential Johnny Cash piece, full of frightening redemption. It’s all capped with “Hurt,” which Cash turns into a meditation on mortality.

I really don’t know what else to say. Here are 79 songs that argue fairly convincingly that Johnny Cash was one of a kind, a genius interpreter with a soul 20 miles high. While it’s true that they don’t make them like they used to, they honestly never made them like Johnny Cash, and never will again. If you don’t understand how important his loss is, Unearthed is a consistently engrossing way to inform yourself. If after listening, you still don’t get it, there’s no hope. Cash leaves behind a sadder, shoddier, more artificial world than the one he knew, and even though we all still have to live in it, we have his work to remind us of a time when things mattered, people were real, and genuine redemption was difficult, eternally rewarding work.

Rest in peace, Johnny. We’ll miss you.

* * * * *

Next week is Christmas, of course, so enjoy yourselves. The Year-End Top 10 List will hit on New Year’s Eve. After that, year four.

See you in line Tuesday morning… and to all a good night.

Where to start with Ryan Adams?

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Ryan Adams wants to be an iconic rock god. He’s not satisfied with the Boy Genius tag he’s been given since his days in Whiskeytown, either. Since launching his solo career in 2000, he’s been astoundingly prolific, announcing project after project, and then shelving most of them after completion. But he spends at least as much time on his carefully crafted image. Even though few outside of his circle of fans know his name or his music, and most people still confuse him with Canadian popster Bryan Adams, he’s positioned himself as the new Savior of Rock, and he does all he can do to live up to that.

And it’s been showing through in his music. Where Whiskeytown was down-to-earth and confessional, Adams’ solo projects have been more and more artificial, more concerned with putting on a good show than with using music as a conduit between souls. That’s always been fine with me – I enjoy artists like Beck and David Bowie, who change personas as often as they change underwear. But Adams’ legion of fans, those same folks who were lauding his singular talent when Strangers Almanac came out, have been put off lately by his antics and a solo career that at times feels like it’s careening out of control.

Adams is undoubtedly going for icon status – he wants to be the Sensitive Rocker, the Cool Hipster, the Dangerous Rebel With the Heart of Gold. He imagines himself as the Unpredictable, Self-Destructive Rock Star, and it’s an archetype he’s wearing like a suit. And his recent albums have sounded like products of the same archetype, cut from the same motivational cloth. Everything he does now is another building block in his self-aggrandizing myth.

But hell, it’s starting to be a fun ride, especially lately. Adams has been systematically demolishing his prior sound, established during the Whiskeytown days and perfected on his stunning solo debut, Heartbreaker. In 2001, he released Gold, an old-fashioned double album that jumped from style to style, as if Adams had just discovered a musical world outside of alt-country. (Most of Gold fits on one disc, but he cheekily titled the five-song bonus platter Side Four, a tip of the hat to the days of vinyl.) He then launched into four simultaneous projects with four different bands, a sampler of which was released last year under the title Demolition.

Through it all, Adams has been veering away from the twangy country-rock with which he made his name, so much so that sections of Demolition sound like the aural equivalent of a raised middle finger aimed at his former fans. Nothing wrong with that, either – Adams is evolving, and if some of his audience refuse to follow him, then so be it. Trouble is, his label, the No Depression haven Lost Highway, is starting to feel the strain.

So when Adams delivered Love Is Hell, the proper follow-up to Gold, early this year, Lost Highway told him he’d gone too far. It seems Adams has been in a melancholy ’80s mood lately, so he found himself a producer known for that sort of thing – John Porter, who made a number of Smiths albums, among others. Together they crafted a mellow reverie, layered and sad, that (of course) bore no resemblance to the alt-country for which Adams was signed. So now Adams can add a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-style story of label rejection to his myth – Lost Highway sent the album back and told Adams to do better.

And all things considered, they probably shit a brick when they heard Adams’ idea of “doing better.” The album Lost Highway accepted (probably out of exasperation) is called Rock N Roll, and it’s as simple, loud and direct as its title. Adams has apparently decided to stay in the ’80s, only this time, he really wants to be Paul Westerberg. It’s the noisiest thing he’s made yet, full of ringing guitars and screamed vocals, and propelled by pounding drum beats that’ll make the Uncle Tupelo fans go into cardiac arrest. It’s exactly the sort of impetuous, dumb, legend-making record that gets one noticed, especially if it’s recorded under duress.

Thankfully, Adams writes good Paul Westerberg songs, so Rock N Roll isn’t a total waste. Still, it feels like a quick, dumb detour, one recorded in a weekend. Adams crashes through the first four songs so quickly that they barely register – they’re all flurries of guitar and shouted choruses. “So Alive” is an ’80s anthem, all soaring melody and thudding beat. With “Note to Self: Don’t Die,” Adams has somehow come up with one of the year’s best song titles and married it to one of its lamest songs, a plodding grunge dirge that couldn’t have taken him more than an hour to write.

Ironically, the title track is the one moment of reflective pause here, and it stands out. It’s a brief piano number over which Adams laments, “Everybody’s cool playing rock and roll, I don’t feel cool at all.” That number heralds the superior final act, beginning with “Anybody Wanna Take Me Home,” a perfect Replacements mimicry. But by the time “The Drugs Not Working” completes its extended coda and fade, you’ve realized that Adams has gone a whole record without delivering anything heart-stoppingly great. It’s all a big show, fun for a bit but wearying upon repeated listens.

At the very least, this whole fiasco has shown that record label stupidity extends to even the most artist-friendly minors. Yes, Lost Highway finally released Love Is Hell, inexplicably broken up into two EPs, and yes, it’s considerably better than Rock N Roll. In fact, I can’t figure out why they didn’t just run with it in the first place – if after Demolition they still think Adams is going to go back to the twang, they’re deluded. And he obviously poured his heart into this one, in a way he just didn’t on Rock N Roll.

Love Is Hell is a hushed, mostly acoustic affair full of poetry and atmosphere. It’s absolutely an attempt at bringing out the Sensitive Side of the Dangerous Rocker, and it’s all for show – he mentions the Chelsea Hotel not once, but twice, for pity’s sake – but this show is a good one. Only two songs (the title track and “This House is Not For Sale”) shift the tempos above the patient, languorous pace of the opener, “Political Scientist.” Often Adams is only accompanied by acoustic guitar or piano. It’s meant to sound like the Window Into the Tortured Soul, and it succeeds.

Whatever the motivations behind it, though, Love Is Hell is a deeply enjoyable work, from the Jeff Buckley imitation on “Afraid Not Scared” to the lovely chorus melody of “Avalanche” to the dramatic Cure-inspired sound of “City Rain, City Streets.” It takes Adams into new places, which is exactly Lost Highway’s complaint, of course. He covers Oasis’ “Wonderwall” here, turning it from pop-crap to something approaching affecting, and he apes Bruce Springsteen on closer “Hotel Chelsea Nights.” There’s no defining, statement-making sound, but there is an advanced sense of songcraft, something sorely missing from Rock N Roll.

The album also doesn’t benefit from the two-EPs approach – it forces each half to stand on its own, and like Tarantino’s Kill Bill (similarly cleaved in two), it’s meant to be experienced whole. “Avalanche” is a perfect middle-of-the-record song, and “My Blue Manhattan” follows it nicely. Unfortunately, the former closes part one, and the latter opens part two. Who knows if this is even the originally intended sequence of Love Is Hell, but in this form, splitting it into halves doesn’t make any sense. Plus, didn’t the label have to press two CDs, print two booklets and distribute two records this way? Each part costs about seven bucks, so they’re not making much more than they would had they released one CD for 13, and it seems to me that the expenses are much higher. Especially for an album the label purports to dislike.

Music aside, these two releases (three if you count the two EPs separately) add immeasurably to the myth of Ryan Adams. Here we have both his Great Lost Record and his Petulant Comeback to His Label. The stories behind the albums are, one imagines, at least as important to him as the albums themselves. The shame here is that neither album is as good as Gold, which wasn’t quite as good as Heartbreaker. The Ryan Adams Pose is already leading him down a self-destructive career path, one that hardly ever ends well. Part of me hopes he’ll snap out of it and make a killer album soon, but the other part secretly hopes for a fun ride to a musical crash and burn, just because it will make a good story. Either way, it remains to be seen whether the artist will trump the myth or be drowned by it.

Next week, Johnny Cash.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The Academy did it again.

For the benefit of those who despise award shows and my constant obsessive complaining about them, I have shortened the annual Bitch About the Grammys column to only a couple of paragraphs this time. That’s mostly because there’s just nothing left to say about the stupidity and laziness of the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and their seeming inability to keep track of the best music released in a given year. That’s also because, as the Grammys go, this year’s selections aren’t too bad. OutKast made out big for their excellent Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, and Warren Zevon will hopefully receive a posthumous award for at least one of his five nominations. Nothing for most of the year’s best releases, of course, but that’s all subjective and to be expected.

I do, however, have one major gripe, and it’s a familiar one. Fountains of Wayne are nominated for Best New Artist, despite having been around for about seven years and having released their third album in 2003. I’m tired of the Academy calling something new just because they haven’t heard of it before. If they’re going to rely on hit singles to select the nominees in this category, they should probably change the name to Best Breakthrough Artist. Calling Fountains a new artist is just plain ignorant, and lazy to boot.

But there is an upside. Thanks to a Best Rock Song nod, I now live in a universe where it’s accurate to call “Stacy’s Mom” a Grammy nominee. That’s too bizarre.

* * * * *

One thing that bothers me about the Academy is its pained reliance on restrictive genre labels. They’ve subdivided the nominations into “fields,” including pop, rap, country, R&B, bluegrass, alternative and rock. Thing is, music just doesn’t neatly fold itself into boxes like that too often, unless the producers and artists are specifically designing it to. To pick a few nominees, would you label OutKast rap or R&B? Or pop, even? They do all three on their nominated album. Kid Rock – is he rock, rap or country? Or all of the above?

If there’s one label that means nothing anymore, though, it has to be alternative. That word used to describe the indie bands that offered, yes, an alternative to mainstream radio. Now it’s been co-opted as a mainstream radio format. The word has lost all significance – it’s just another way to describe a style, instead of an attitude. Do you think Jane’s Addiction (the modern version) imagines their music as an alternative to anything?

Here’s another one: progressive. What does that even mean? When it entered the lexicon, it was meant as a sign that a particular band was pushing the boundaries of accepted musical forms. Bands like Yes, Genesis and Jethro Tull wore their prog badges proudly, and created technical, complex music that certainly seemed to progress toward something.

Now the progressive tag is applied to anything that smells like Tales From Topographic Oceans. If it’s needlessly hard to play, say the critics, it’s prog. Never mind that the term now describes its opposite – if anything, the we-wish-it-was-1973 attitude of most prog is regressive. And then there’s progressive metal, a subgenre with an oxymoron all its own. Metal hasn’t significantly progressed anywhere since 1984 or so, and progressive metal is nothing more than ’70s prog played louder. Labels like “prog-metal” are commonplace because they give writers an easy out – you don’t need to discuss anything on its own merits if you can play the sounds-like game.

For my money, Dream Theater sounds like no one else on the market right now. They’re a stunningly virtuosic quintet, able to play rings around even the most talented of their peers. They have a symphonic compositional sense that’s unmatched, and an inhuman endurance level. Their concerts have been known to run three hours, chock full of the most difficult and taxing music you’re likely to hear outside of a Zappa revue.

They also seem quite at home with every stupid metal cliche in the book. Guitarist John Petrucci lets fly with some of the wankiest solos since the days of Yngwie Malmsteen, drummer Mike Portnoy just loves his double bass pedals, and singer James LaBrie comes from a time when long-haired men screamed from the throat and were thought of as cool, not cheesy. There is a wild card – keyboardist Jordan Rudess, who adds most of the symphonic touches, would have been run out of Megadeth on a rail. But otherwise, the stupidity of genre labels aside, calling Dream Theater a metal band wouldn’t be inaccurate.

Except that lately, they’ve been upping the symphonic elements and downplaying the metallic ones. Last year’s double-disc opus Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence featured a 40-minute song, a sure sign that someone’s been listening to Relayer or the like. Though pieces of the album were slash-and-burn, very little of it stood up to older DT records like Awake for sheer heaviness.

Well, here’s hoping you didn’t like that direction, because the new Dream Theater album, Train of Thought, takes a sharp veer back to the punishing riffs of old. In fact, you’re only a few minutes in before Petrucci starts bitch-slapping you with his lightning-fast soloing, something which made very few appearances on Turbulence. Train of Thought is seven songs long, and the average length is right around 10 minutes each. There are few breaks from the metallic onslaught – “Vacant” is a two-minute interlude, “Endless Sacrifice” begins and ends with clean guitar sections, and that’s about it. The rest is loud, fast and angry.

In fact, this record sounds very much like DT’s attempt to make a classic Metallica album. Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets certainly incorporated elements of ’70s prog, and added the impressive feat of creating symphonies with just guitars, bass and drums. As much of a presence as Rudess has been since he joined four years ago, the rest of the band seemed to have trouble fitting him in here – he’s consigned to a few solos and some ill-matched (yet brief) interludes when not providing background atmosphere. The focus is undeniably on the guitars this time around.

Train of Thought is a complex album, of course, and the instrumental sections that make up the bulk of each song are impeccably arranged and played. Still, what sticks are the metal cliches throughout. All the lyrics are angry, but that anger is directed at well-worn targets – religious fanatics, bad parents, the insanity of life, etc. The songs have titles like “This Dying Soul” and “In the Name of God,” and LaBrie sings them with the traditional operatic seriousness of the best metal singers throughout the ages.

But hell, who listens to this stuff for the lyrics? You listen to Dream Theater to hear five guys lock into some crazy complex polyrhythms, the sort of thing that sounds impressive even if you don’t know what a polyrhythm is. You listen to hear Petrucci, one of the best masturbatory axe-slingers around, go apeshit all over his fretboard. You listen to hear Portnoy somehow not pull a rotator cuff while slamming out superhuman drum fills. You listen to hear a level of musicianship you just don’t get to hear anymore, and Train of Thought largely delivers on that. If you liked Awake best and have been hoping the band will return to that sound, you’ll like this. Even if you hoped they’d continue traveling the symphonic road they’d been on, though, this is impressive stuff, and it shouldn’t let you down too much.

* * * * *

Comparatively speaking, few would likely consider Queensryche a progressive band. But consider the following evidence: 1) They’ve made a concept album – 1988’s brilliant Operation: Mindcrime, which included spoken sections, an overture, and an imaginative plotline. 2) They’ve worked with orchestras, several times (“Silent Lucidity,” “Real World,” etc.), and used them to accentuate the inherent symphonic qualities already present in their music. 3) They have a classically trained, operatic singer in Geoff Tate, a guy who can hold a note well past the lung capacities of many of his peers. And 4), Dream Theater asked them to open their recent tour, a slot that has traditionally been held by neo-proggers like Fates Warning.

It’s also true that they’re known as a metal band – they even have an accursed umlaut in their name, over the “y.” But in truth, they haven’t played what any self-respecting longhair would call real metal since the early ’80s. Queensryche only has one metal album to its credit (1984’s The Warning), and since then, they’ve been exploring the progressive and pop sides of their sound.

One doesn’t expect much of Queensryche these days, unfortunately. They have the pallor of a band that’s past its prime, and their last two projects suffered in comparison to their early work. Hear in the Now Frontier was a compressed pop album, a collection of singles looking for a platinum record that never came, directed almost entirely by guitarist Chris DeGarmo. He then promptly left the band, to be replaced by Kelly Gray, who did a competent yet unremarkable job on Q2K, a limp effort heavy on groove and light on inspiration. Even the most ardent fans had to admit that the days of great Queensryche records were probably over.

Which is why Tribe, their just-released ninth album, is such a pleasant surprise. Inspired by the events of September 11, Tate rallied the band, pulled back DeGarmo for five songs, and turned in the best Ryche record since Promised Land. It’s no coincidence that DeGarmo’s return heralds an album crying for unity and understanding, even if he’s since bid the band farewell again. His guitar sound and distinctive flair for melody instantly pop from the speakers, giving all the evidence one needs to conclude that Q2K should never have happened.

Tribe is a shorter, more song-oriented disc than Queensryche has made lately – 10 standard-length tracks, each with memorable choruses and fewer art-rock touches than before. At only 41 minutes, it’s pretty much in and out, but it’s enough time to leave a swell impression. “Open” opens the record with a monstrous riff and a lyric about tolerance, “Desert Dance” incorporates some rapcore shouting (but done well) over a killer guitar line, “Falling Behind” has a classic DeGarmo acoustic feel, “Rhythm of Hope” reaches skyward beautifully, “Tribe” crashes in with heavy distortion and Tate’s menacing spoken verses, and “The Art of Life” pulls it all together in four impressive minutes.

There’s just no way also-rans like P.O.D. should be outselling this album. This is a thoroughly modern Queensryche, thoughtful and restrained, yet muscular and confident. When stacked against their recent work, this thing is almost a revolution. Tate’s in fine voice throughout, a marked improvement from the previous couple of albums, and while there’s nothing fun or enjoyable about most of the lyrics, one imagines Tate is at home again, excoriating violent governments and crying out for peace. It turns out, all he and the band needed was something to sing about.

And the epilogue, “Doin’ Fine,” might be the most genuinely uplifting piece of music yet inspired by 9/11. “Next time we could try a little harder,” Tate sings, before proclaiming, “Look around, everything’s better now.” Tate never succumbs to Springsteen-itis, the unfortunate tendency of American songwriters to believe it’s all about America, and to provide a rallying point for the country. We’re all, as he notes, the same tribe. The theme of the album is summed up in “Great Divide”: “Take the flag we wave, the freedoms that we sing, without respect for one other, it doesn’t mean a thing.”

This is the passionate response to September 11 that I was hoping to get last year from our more literate songwriters. That it comes from a reinvigorated Queensryche is one of the happiest surprises of my year. If you gave up on the Ryche before the turn of the century, then give this a try, because Tribe will most likely happily surprise you, too.

* * * * *

Which brings us to the grandaddy of all progressive metal bands, Iron Maiden.

Maiden is another band that people are surprised to learn I know quite a bit about. They invented the symphonic metal prototype, and if you’re brought up liking bands like Queensryche and Savatage, eventually you’re going to work your way to Iron Maiden. They’re everything that’s good and bad (usually in equal measure) about this sort of thing – pretentious, goofy, ambitious, textured, ass-kicking, and defiantly their own band. Maiden has never tried to be anything except what they are, and despite legions of imitators, no one does it quite like they do.

What’s always been fascinating about Iron Maiden is their insistence on doing nothing halfway. They’re unflinchingly accepting of both the impressive and silly parts of their sound and image. They write lengthy historical dramas, set books to music, and revel in any new way they can find to bring their sound further over the top. Remember in Spinal Tap when the band unveiled their Stonehenge rock opera and stage set? The movie was making fun of Iron Maiden, and to their credit, there’s no doubt they got the joke.

Much of the melodrama is contained in the forceful alto of Bruce Dickinson, who always sings like he’s leading the Roman army to conquest. Dickinson has a great set of pipes, and his style fits Maiden perfectly, as amply displayed whenever they try to make an album without him. Most recently, the singer’s spot was filled by Blaze Bayley, who led the band through the two worst albums to bear their name (The X-Factor and Virtual XI). One could easily imagine the band giving up the ghost, never again attaining the heights of Powerslave.

But we’ve all watched Behind the Music, and we all know the reunion tour is a staple of long-running rock acts. When Dickinson rejoined Maiden in 2000, you could almost hear the sigh of relief. Bayley was so impossibly bad, so much worse than anyone feared, that even watching the Dickinson band shuffle through a tour of their hits would have been preferable.

Here’s the thing, though – Dickinson’s return re-energized the band in ways even the most hopeful fans couldn’t have expected. 2000 saw the release of Brave New World, an album that brought them back to their Seventh Son sound with a vengeance. And now here’s Dance of Death, the thirteenth Iron Maiden album, and it’s even better. It’s rare to witness such an impressive creative rebirth from a band many had written off.

Given that this band likes to set atmosphere right up front, the fact that Dance of Death opens with a live-sounding count-off (“One, two, three, four!”) is startling. That the first two tracks are, dare I say it, fun is also quite a surprise. “Wildest Dreams” is a revved-up rocker, and “Rainmaker” is barely done kicking your ass before its 3:48 is up. The pieces get longer as the album progresses, but the vibe remains – this is probably the most fun I’ve ever had listening to Iron Maiden.

The album includes epics galore, like the marching song “Paschendale” and the atmospheric closer “Journeyman,” which incorporates strings for the first time on a Maiden album. But none are more epic or mind-expanding than the title track, quite simply one of the best songs in the band’s catalog. It’s more than eight minutes long, and it leaps from complex section to complex section nimbly, wrapping it all up in one chorus-less whole. It’s the second coming of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and the absolute highlight of the album.

There’s not much more I can say – if you ever liked Iron Maiden, even a little bit, you’ll like Dance of Death. It’s unquestionably one of the best things they’ve yet done, and considering they’re on album 13 and year 24, that’s borderline amazing. Those lamenting the loss of heavy music on a truly epic scale can take heart that at least one band is still doing it right.

This one’s for Shane Kinney, who’s been after me to review Dance of Death for months. There you go, Shaner, now what are you going to do for me?

* * * * *

A quick note about last week’s column before I go. I got a nice email from Keavin Wiggins, who runs Donnie Vie’s website, and he sent me the artwork and liner notes for Just Enough. Suffice it to say that my guess about Vie playing all the instruments was incorrect – there’s a host of people on there, and I fear I’ve slighted them all. In particular my apologies go to Andrew Rollins, who appears to have been Vie’s musical partner on this project. Everything else I said still stands – good album, check it out at www.donnievie.com.

Next week, Ryan Adams.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I quit my stupid job this week.

Well, not quit so much as gave my notice, since my budget requires that I stick it out for another three weeks, but on December 19, I’m all done. This job has been an albatross about my neck since March, but it became unbearable only a few months ago when the 12-hour days kicked in. Since then, I’ve had only five days off – two for the Thanksgiving holiday, and three for a funeral. I just have so many other, better things I can do with my time, and thanks to the money I’ve saved, I have a nice six-month buffer to decide where to go next. It seems like I do this once a year now, right around this time, and the tradition continues…

I have, of course, had people I work with come up to me upon hearing the news and ask me why I would throw away such a “good job,” such a “great opportunity for a young guy.” And I don’t know how to answer that. This whole situation has had the unfortunate side effect of making me feel extremely old, and wasted, and useless, and I need to get out before those feelings go away, and I start to wonder myself why I would quit such a “good job.”

So three weeks, and I’m gone. That’s 21 days, or 252 hours. I can do that.

* * * * *

I owe Donnie Vie an apology.

A few months ago, the guys who run his website (www.donnievie.com) sent me downloads of Vie’s first solo album, Just Enough. I promised a review, but I figured I’d wait until the album was actually released, so that curious readers could check it out and buy it. And then things came up, and I didn’t get around to the review. I’ve just recently found out that the U.S. release has come and gone – the label that printed up the tiny run has sold out of them, twice. So instead of being too early, this column is too late. My apologies to Donnie and Keavin Wiggins, who sent me the album.

The tragedy of the puny print run on this side of the pond is that Just Enough is really good. Had this album been released by a better-known artist, it would be hailed as a sweet pop gem. As it is, almost no one is going to get to hear it – which is one reason Vie has set up his online club, to connect with potential fans who may not be able to pick up the CD.

I’d be willing to bet that very few of my readers are nodding their heads at the mention of the name Donnie Vie. For 15 years, Vie was one-half of the songwriting team behind Enuff Znuff, a criminally underrated and undeservedly obscure band that combined intelligent ’60s pop with pyrotechnic ’80s rock. That combination works a lot better than it sounds like it would. Vie and guitarist Chip Z’Nuff were a team in the Lennon/McCartney tradition, and few acts of the past 30 years have managed to come up with a consistent string of superb pop songs that rivals Enuff Znuff’s output. If you think I’m kidding, you haven’t heard them.

I’ve said this before, but the best way to describe Enuff Z’Nuff is as John Lennon’s glam-rock band. Vie and Z’Nuff have been great songwriters all along, but only recently did they make the transition into great record makers – the production finally started matching the quality of the songs on 1999’s Paraphernalia, EZN’s ninth album. The streak continued with 2001’s Ten and this year’s Welcome to Blue Island, both swell pop records. With the band starting to come into their own artistically, of course it was high time for the singer to leave.

And leave he did, forcing lead guitarist Monaco to take over lead vocal duties. Whether EZN can continue without half of their songwriting force remains to be seen, but they really shouldn’t keep calling it Enuff Z’Nuff. I hate to keep making Beatles analogies, but they’re par for the course with this band: calling a Vie-less Enuff Z’Nuff by that name would be like reuniting the Beatles without John and George. It won’t be the same.

The dissolution of the Vie/Z’Nuff partnership is tempered somewhat by Just Enough, which carries the EZN tradition into quieter and more pure pop areas. (The title references that dissolution effectively: puns usually give me a rash, but I liked this one.) I don’t have liner notes with my downloaded copy, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Vie’s first solo effort is indeed purely solo. The drums are all programmed (though not techno or cheeseball), and the backing vocals are all Vie, so it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to imagine him playing all the instruments.

And if that’s true, he should be quite proud of this record. The searing guitars are gone, but otherwise, there isn’t much separating this from the best of Enuff Z’Nuff’s work. Vie’s gift for melody never fails him here – he’s written 12 winning pop tunes that move and breathe, propelled most often by acoustic guitars. The production is sometimes thin, but the songs are unfailingly sweet and meaty, and Vie’s voice is in top form, recalling John Lennon in his prime.

The primary difference between this and some of EZN’s quieter work is Vie’s new sense of maturity. It’s like he’s angling for the respect he’s always deserved on this album, proving his worth as a songwriter track after track. Opener “Spider Web” details feelings of hopelessness, backed by a super melody reminiscent of “I’m Only Sleeping.” It never slips into melancholy, however – it’s a song about reaching through the haze, a common theme on Just Enough.

The hits just keep on coming, too. “Better Days” sounds like a classic, one that’s been on the radio forever. “I’ll Go On” is the most Beatlesque thing here, and it’s right on par with McCartney’s best stuff. “Wasting Time” is beautiful, despite a synth string section that galls a bit. “Alice in a Jam” is almost giddy in its poppy charms. Vie turns in his best vocal performance ever on “That’s What Love Is,” a terrific acoustic ballad. And who knows why the effervescent hit-in-the-making “Blowing Kisses in the Wind” is sequenced so late in the album, but it’s a delight.

It’s shameful that an album so full of life, and a songwriter so full of good ideas, can’t find a supportive U.S. label. I follow a lot of songwriters from band to band, from album to album, and Donnie Vie is one of only a handful that’s never let me down – I’ve never felt even a twinge of regret for buying anything he’s associated with. If you appreciate good pop music, you owe it to yourself to check out Vie’s work, both here and with Enuff Znuff.

The problem remains getting that work out to people, and Vie’s made great strides in that direction with his online club. The simple truth is that if record labels won’t invest the time and money into supporting a songwriter of this caliber, then they’re useless, and we as music fans ought to bypass them entirely and go right to the source. If you live in the U.S., www.donnievie.com is pretty much the only place to hear new tunes by Donnie, and if it works out for him, he might become one of the first to stop making traditional CDs entirely. I say more power to him, because it certainly isn’t a lack of talent that’s been keeping Vie from the spotlight. One listen to Just Enough will easily confirm that.

* * * * *

I finished the Top 10 List last week, and I’m set to run it on the last week of December, following my traditional Christmas break. The rest of the year is accounted for, with a bit of a surprise next week and reviews of Ryan Adams, Cerberus Shoal and the new Johnny Cash box set coming up. Happy Thanksgiving, all.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

This is my 150th column, signifying the end of year three.

No, no, no applause necessary. Just send money.

Anyway, the same boring old self-congratulation-and-thanks-to-everyone-reading-this gets tired after a while, I’m sure, but I still mean every word of the thank you part. This column has brought me in contact with some truly great people, especially recently, and without all of you, I’m just shouting into a vacuum. So thanks for letting me (hopefully) entertain you for three years. ‘Nuff said.

This is also the second column I wrote this week. The first is much more bloggy and emotional than this one, and I figured you’ve probably all had enough of that from me, so I immediately archived it. But it’s on the site, linked through the archive page, if you want to read it.

Anyway, when it comes to these anniversary columns, I always want to have something important or personally relevant, musically speaking, to discuss. It hardly ever works out that way, and usually I have to wrack my brain to come up with a fitting subject. Not so this time – my topic was handed to me by Sir Paul McCartney himself. What better way to cap the third year than by talking about the best band to ever walk the planet, the Beatles?

I can’t remember the first time I heard a Beatles song. Their work is such an integrated part of the cultural continuum that it feels, to me at least, like it’s always been in my life. I can remember the first Beatles album I bought, though: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, on cassette, when I was 15 years old. Talk about starting at the top – the album was a complete revelation for me, and it’s only deepened over time. I now own every Beatles album in at least two formats, and still rank them as the best band I’ve ever encountered, and Sgt. Pepper as the best album I’ve ever heard.

I give you this personal history of my experience with the band simply because there’s no point in rehashing the history of the group itself. The Fab Four have been discussed, dissected, lauded and deified for 40 years, and by many more eloquent and knowledgeable people than myself. It seems the consensus that the Beatles were the best band in the history of rock, the best songwriters in the history of pop, and the best record makers in the history of recorded sound. Their position as icons and deities, at least in the worlds of rock criticism and fandom, seems immutable.

As a f’rinstance, Rolling Stone has just published another of their asinine “500 Best Albums of All Time” list, featuring picks and contributions from all manner of literati. Sgt. Pepper came in at number one, of course, but Rubber Soul, Revolver and the White Album all cracked the top 10 as well. That means that according to Rolling Stone‘s experts (whatever that means), four guys are responsible for 40 percent of the 10 best albums ever made, and since those four records came out all in a row, that also means they accomplished this feat in less than four years.

Yeah, wow. And surely some of you are questioning this. Can it be possible that this band was that good? Is it even fathomable that with today’s technology and nearly 40 years of musical progress, we still haven’t managed to make a better album than one recorded analog on an 8-track and released in 1967? Should any band be raised up to such unattainable heights?

The question of the Beatles’ deification is at the center of Paul McCartney’s ongoing attempts to add to and “correct” the band’s legacy, begun with the expansive (and largely superfluous) Anthology project. But now he’s gone and messed with something sacred – one of the albums themselves. Just out is his “naked” version of Let It Be, the final Beatles record, and an album that landed at number 86 on the Rolling Stone list. And even though I try to temper my own tendency to idolize the Beatles, I can’t help feeling that this is like screwing with the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The story of the Let It Be sessions certainly lends itself to historical revisionism. Mere weeks after the White Album hit stores, the Fab Four reconvened with the idea of getting back to basics – writing some simple rock and roll, performing it live (for the first time in two years) and filming the process for a television special. They were even going to call the project Get Back. Well, the sessions ended in frustration, and the hundreds of tapes were given to producer Glyn Johns to see if an album could be culled from them.

Meanwhile, the boys regrouped for their last studio project, the comparatively lush and staid Abbey Road, and then promptly broke up. The Let It Be sessions were transmuted into an album by Johns and “boosted” in the studio by Phil Spector, who added strings and choirs to four songs. And when McCartney heard it, he hated it. And he went on hating it for 33 years.

So now, 23 years after John Lennon’s death and one year after George Harrison’s, we have Let It Be… Naked, McCartney’s retooled, de-Spectorized version, complete with a sticker that hails it as “the album as it was originally intended.” Which, of course, is a load of crap – the Let It Be album itself was never “intended,” really, and much of what has survived from those sessions only has because of Glyn Johns and his associates. Make no mistake, Naked is a bald-faced attempt at rewriting history.

In and of itself, that doesn’t make the album unnecessary. But to suggest that this release is meant to take the place of the original Let It Be is practically sacrilege, mostly because McCartney (who suggested the idea of the album and approved its release) has changed a number of things that didn’t need to be changed. If Naked had been Let It Be without Spector’s strings and choirs, that might have been interesting. Instead, the new version mucks with enough details to qualify as just another draft, not a definitive statement.

For example, the track order is all askew. Now, I know, the songs were originally arranged by Johns and Spector, and there’s no sacred text that says the album can’t open with “Get Back” instead of closing with it, but after 33 years, messing with the order just feels wrong. Naked plays like the original album on shuffle, for no good reason – nothing is improved by putting “For You Blue” third instead of eleventh, for instance.

Worse than that, though, is the new version’s lack of atmosphere. The original Let It Be is unique in the Beatles catalog because it sounds like the original intention – a document of a fun and loose recording session. The tracks are preceded and followed by studio chatter, most famously John Lennon’s rampant wiseassery. (“Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats…”) Additionally, the 1970 version featured a pair of “throwaways” in “Dig It” and “Maggie May,” each less than a minute long, but undeniably fun. Put simply, the original Let It Be is a whimsical, rollicking record full of personality.

All that is absent from the new one. The chatter is gone, the throwaway tracks are gone, and even some of the extended endings of songs are gone. In their place is a collection of studio tracks, with a slick feel that’s no different from any other Beatles record. It starts and ends without telling you anything interesting about the process that birthed it, and with recordings this stripped-down, the revelatory sense of fun is sorely missed.

What’s curious about the lack of atmosphere is the new version’s stated intention to strip away the studio gloss. Spector’s contributions to four songs are indeed gone, leaving bare bones recordings. The genesis of this plot arose from McCartney’s adverse reaction to Spector’s treatment of his “The Long and Winding Road,” which on Let It Be is stuffed full with strings and choral voices. Similar embellishments have been removed from “Across the Universe,” “I Me Mine” and “Let It Be.”

But here’s the thing: “The Long and Winding Road” sounds awful in this new incarnation. It sounds like a cheap demo of a skeleton of a song. The glorious countermelodies the string sections provided are just plain gone, with nothing in their place. It’s almost a lounge version, and it comes across as mawkish instead of desperately sad. On the original version, McCartney’s longing voice battled with the strings, creating emotional tension. On the new one, there’s none of that.

The only take I agree with is “Across the Universe,” just for its naked beauty, but even that is barely equal with the original version’s reverbed psychedelia. “Let It Be” is here in a different take entirely, I believe, with a completely different guitar solo that just sounds… wrong. It may be 33 years of the original version talking here, but Harrison’s solo is as much a part of this song as the chorus. I’d bet anyone even passingly familiar with “Let It Be” could hum at least part of the solo. It’s been learned and imitated by generations of budding guitarists. Changing it adds nothing but a strange sense of disconnection.

The Naked version also adds “Don’t Let Me Down,” a song that probably should have made the original record. But the song has been as readily available (on Past Masters Vol. 2) as the rest of the catalog, so simply squeezing it in here adds little.

The only improvement the new version makes, in fact, is in the sound. The fidelity and clarity has been improved measurably, and it leads one to wonder why the rest of the Beatles catalog still languishes in the land of analog hiss and hum. If they all could sound like this, then remaster away, Sir Paul. I can always buy the entire freaking catalog again…

Of course, the unabated deification of the band’s records leads to an interesting question: if the Naked version of Let It Be had been released in 1970 and the original one in 2003, would critics be decrying the addition of studio chatter and the removal of “Don’t Let Me Down”? Is it the canonical nature of the original mix that lends it an air of sacrosanct authenticity, or is it actually superior to the new version? Since we can’t remove ourselves from history, we’ll never know.

All I can tell you in this case is that I like the original version better, though I don’t regret hearing the new takes of these familiar tunes. Still, Naked only succeeds in being a curiosity, not a necessary addition to the canon, and certainly not a fitting replacement for Let It Be. Rather, it will get filed off to the side, apart from the 15 “real” CDs, along with the Anthology sets and the solo material. If McCartney intended to make me reach for this disc whenever I feel like listening to Let It Be, then I must disappoint him. If, however, he merely intended to provide a still-rabid fanbase with another scrap and make himself some cash, then he’s done it. And he’s got my cash, the bastard.

In the end, it all comes down to what isn’t there, and perhaps the most gutting omission is Lennon’s final smartass line: “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition.” What a perfect way to end both the album and the catalog, bringing it full circle and providing a neat laugh at the same time. Even if the sense of fun that glues together the original Let It Be is something of a revision of history itself, given the frustrating nature of the sessions, it’s exactly the way I’d want a band like the Beatles to go out. The original Let It Be is a bittersweet farewell, a last romp, a great rock and roll record that bubbles with life and joy. The new version? It’s just another bunch of songs, and that’s what separates the two.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

One of my co-workers died yesterday.

His name was Bryan Forrest, he wasn’t too much older than me, he had a wife and two kids, and he died of a sudden heart attack. And I don’t really know why, but I’m shaken to the core.

Bryan was a genial wiseass. He’d perfected the art of doing nothing at all, and he was never duplicitous about it. But he was so sly that everyone forgave him. Bryan was direct and honest – my first conversation with him revolved around Jesus and why I didn’t go to church. Mind you, this was not just our first real conversation, but the first time we’d ever spoken. And it put me off a bit, but I came to realize that’s just how Bryan was.

I didn’t know him well at all. News of his death hit the plant at 3:30 a.m., the time Bryan was to report for work, and scores of people were devastated, crying their eyes out. The company did an awkward 20-second moment of silence, and put up a form letter memo into which they’d obviously inserted his name. (From: Front Office Re: Loss of BRYAN FORREST.) And life just went on.

My last conversation with Bryan was about (what else) his amazing ability to avoid any kind of work for huge stretches of time. He told me, upon completion of my break, to get back to work, and I laughed at the irony. He spotted it too, and said, “Some things never change, do they?”

But some things change all the time, and lately they seem to be changing with increasing, frightening rapidity. We did a little discussing at work and found that no fewer than six of us had taken time off in the last month for funerals. Six of us. It’s starting to feel more and more like death is circling above, indiscriminately taking whomever it wants, and closing in.

And I probably wouldn’t feel this way if I hadn’t been one of the above-mentioned six. I took off for Massachusetts last week, however, because one of my best friends, Ray Tiberio, became the first of my close-knit circle to lose a parent.

I honestly don’t remember the first time I met Fred Tiberio, simply because his house has been a second home to me since high school. His family has become like my family over the years. There’s no getting around it – Fred Tiberio was a big, big guy. He was tall and wide, and his very presence could be imposing for those who didn’t know him. Once you did know him, however, it became obvious that his heart and spirit were at least as large as his form. Mr. T. let you know when you were family, and once that happened, he’d move the world for you if he could.

Mr. T. beat back cancer for the last eight years, suffered the loss of both kidneys and depended on dialysis three to four times a week. Still, he was always cheerful and ready with a kind greeting, and he remained remarkably funny, even up to the last time I saw him alive. It wasn’t the cancer that took him – it was a sudden brain aneurysm, and if you can tell me how that makes sense in a just world, I’d love to hear it.

As if that wasn’t more than enough death, Mike Ferrier, another close friend, lost his aunt that same week. She had been going in for a surgical procedure, and passed away before they could operate. I had never met her, but anything that affects my best friends in the world also deeply affects me, and I’m filled with an overpowering urge to help, to do whatever I can to ease whatever pain I’m able. And the entire time, I’m doomed to realize that it’s hopeless – there’s nothing I can do or say that will ever help fill the holes these people have left.

There was a stretch of time, the day of Mr. Tiberio’s funeral, in which Mike couldn’t reach his parents. He was under the impression that they would meet him at the church, but they never did, and they weren’t answering at home. And I swear, I was terrified, probably as much as Mike was. There has been so much death this year that a small, paranoid part of my brain insisted that I was in for more, that Mike was in for more, that this whole dismal year would never end.

It turned out to be a miscommunication, and the Ferriers were fine. But man, no one should have to feel like that. There shouldn’t be this strange black shroud over everything, these nagging feelings of hopelessness that twinge like tiny daggers every time someone doesn’t answer the phone, or doesn’t come directly to the door.

And hey, God, if you’re reading this, I’d really just like to say that you’ve made your point. We understand. You can take any of us at any time, and we’ll never know it’s coming. We get it.

Now knock it off. Please.

Services for Bryan are this weekend, but I don’t think I’m going. I haven’t been able to leave hugging-and-crying mode since Friday, and I’m spent. I need to recuperate, to make sense of everything that’s happening, and to talk to some friends and make sure they’re okay. And then I need to start hoping that 2004 is brighter, sweeter and greener than 2003, because frankly, this year has sucked beyond description. And I can’t wait to put it behind me.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

This one’s for Liz Balin.

Liz and I shared an apartment in Portland my final year there, and it was easily one of the most tumultuous years of my life. We’re talking massive, sweeping change, the effects of which I’m still feeling, in many ways. For roommates, Liz and I hardly saw each other, but since our initial bonds were all about music, I’d get into the habit of leaving recommended albums out on the kitchen counter, where I knew she’d see them and play them in the mornings.

We’re on opposite coasts now, and time is a precious commodity for both of us, so I don’t get to connect with Liz as much as I’d like. But she’s the only person I know who likes all three of this week’s review subjects. There are certain bands and musicians who are forever associated with certain people to me, and bring those people to mind no matter what songs I hear. These three make me think of Liz Balin, and how much I miss just hanging out and listening to music with her. If I were to talk about these albums to her personally, this is probably pretty close to what I’d say.

* * * * *

Whenever I mention Travis, I have to mention Joel Langston.

I’d like to think I’d have discovered Travis on my own, but as it happened, Joel turned Liz and me on to the British quartet at the same time, by loaning our household a copy of their great second album, The Man Who. The modern British pop renaissance was just starting, and Travis was one of those bands in line to be the next Radiohead (or at least the next Coldplay), if you believed the press.

And they did share one thing in common with Radiohead – an airy, spaced-out sound, courtesy of genius producer Nigel Godrich. The similarities ended there, however. While Thom Yorke’s boys were busy setting his futuristic paranoia to increasingly alien soundscapes, Travis remained the nice band next door, writing sweet love songs and hummable anthems of hope and sadness. In fact, their third album, The Invisible Band, was so damn nice and lightweight that it practically floated away before you could finish listening to it.

I didn’t consider that a flaw until just recently, mind you. Travis has just released 12 Memories, the dictionary definition of a defining album, and it casts the earlier ones into sharp relief. I’d often wondered just how much of the floaty Travis sound was the work of Godrich, and now that they’ve made an album without him, it turns out that the answer is all of it.

12 Memories is the sound of Travis waking up, and I had to hear it three times before I could wrap my mind around the idea that the “Why Does It Always Rain on Me” band could be capable of something this muscular. This album surges with life. It’s drowned in explosive electric guitars, yanked along by a breakneck (for Travis) pace that rarely subsides. It’s also the best thing they’ve made, a powerhouse that finally – finally – establishes a solid identity and carves out its own space.

Really, what they’ve done is become the anti-Coldplay, which is much more clever than it sounds. While most Brit-pop wannabes have taken their cues from Chris Martin and stripped away everything but piano and atmosphere, Travis has made a production, a huge, full, massive-sounding record that stands out by going the other way. Hearing nice guy Fran Healy curse and spit his way through “Peace the Fuck Out” is kind of unsettling, but in its own way just as invigorating as hearing the band crash their way through “Mid-Life Krysis” and “The Beautiful Occupation” as if their guitars were on fire.

Oh, and the songs are quite good, as well. “Quicksand” starts things off with a superb piano-driven melody, “Somewhere Else” delivers one of the year’s best guitar lines, and “Paperclips” stumbles and shuffles with a delightful drunkenness. Almost everything is amped up here – check out the thudding drum beat over the otherwise placid “Happy to Hang Around.” Through it all, Healy sings like never before, refusing to remain content with his pleasing warble and falsetto. He’s a revelation.

The final two memories disappoint somewhat, but only in comparison to what precedes them. “Walking Down the Hill” brings the atmosphere but forgets the soaring chorus melody this arrangement is crying for, and unlisted track “Some Sad Song” finally gives in to the Coldplay influence. Even if they fumbled the ending, though, Travis has delivered far beyond expectations on 12 Memories. This is the sound of a band who doesn’t want to be the next Radiohead anymore. They’re finally ready to start being the first Travis.

* * * * *

Leaving records on the counter for Liz was always a hit-or-miss proposition. One of the few times I hit big, though, was with Bitter, the textured third album from Meshell Ndegeocello. The album is a short, meandering ode to broken hearts and angry pain, delivered entirely with slow, folksy grooves. Ndegeocello has never done another one like it, before or since, and for my money, she’s never found a better setting for her husky, sultry voice.

That includes Comfort Woman, her just-released fifth album, though this one comes in a close second. Coming on the heels of last year’s Cookie, an hour-plus-long funk-rap-o-rama, Comfort Woman is a 39-minute space jam that shows off Ndegeocello at her most cosmic and most earthy. These 10 short songs set gorgeous, blissed-out keyboard and guitar lines over a dub base, and center on that deep, penetrating voice. Like Bitter, this is an album of love songs – it’s almost a counterpart, coming as it does from a place of wide-open optimism.

The problem with Comfort Woman is the same problem that has dogged Ndegeocello’s work all along – a lack of memorable melodies, and often, a lack of any melodies at all. It’s a shame that she doesn’t give her voice more to do, especially since it’s pretty captivating all by itself. She sticks to half-spoken wanderings and two-note phrases here, which I would pass off as in keeping with the hazy, druggy style of the disc if she didn’t do this all the time, no matter the milieu.

Regardless, Comfort Woman is a rewarding listen, in ways that Cookie was not. And like Bitter, which concluded with the cyclical “Grace,” this album ends with its best song: “Thankful” brings it all together, with its contented lyric, thumping drums and bass, and gently soaring guitar theme. It’s three minutes of bliss capping off an album that wanders hither and thither before hitting upon lucidity. At its worst, this record is a loose collection of jams with extemporaneous love lyrics superimposed. At its best, however, it’s as mind-expanding and trippy a ride as its author obviously intended.

* * * * *

I hope Liz doesn’t mind me revealing this, but I’ve never met a bigger Sting fan in my life.

The younger of you may not remember or believe this, but there was once a time when Sting was considered the epitome of cool. The early ’80s made a lot of ridiculously uncool people seem cool, but Sting was genuinely admired by just about everyone. The first three Police albums are unassailable, taking equally from punk, reggae and new wave to form a signature hybrid that just plain rocks. Even those last two albums, when the blinding light of fame illuminated every breath they took, hold up. They’re pretty… well, cool.

And then something weird happened. Sting launched a solo career, won a few Grammys, and turned into a weak pop star. And it gets worse – I’ve always considered Sting a punk-popper who’s just been masquerading as a frightfully mellow lite-FM guy, but in his new autobiography Broken Music, he asserts that it’s the reverse. If he’s to be believed, he’s always been a sappy balladeer, and for more than a decade, he was posing as cool.

This, of course, throws the whole notion of cool and uncool into upheaval, because when Sting was cool, he really was. If he’s being honest, and the whole time he was writing “Message in a Bottle” and “Walking on the Moon” he really wanted to be writing songs like “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying,” then he’s one hell of an actor. And I’ve seen Dune. Guy can’t act.

Sting has kept fans like myself and Liz hoping for a return to the former greatness for more than 10 years now, and it might be time to give up. I can remember Liz asking the clerk at Borders for Sting’s last album: “Do you have any copies of Brand New Probably Excruciating Day?” And man, was that one bad: “Is he rapping? In French? What the…?”

Well, guess what. The downward trend continues on Sacred Love, the winner for Worst Album Title of the Year. The Sting of 1981 would never have named an album Sacred Love. And he never would have written a series of songs this treacly and stupid. Sting has taken his cues from the successful dance mix of “Desert Rose” that made him so much money last year, and he’s added clubby beats to most of these tracks. “Send Your Love” is perhaps the best of the first batch, and even that wears after one chorus. I can’t even bring myself to discuss “Whenever I Say Your Name,” his duet with Mary J. Blige, except to say, “I smell Grammy!”

The album is nearly over before Sting provides the one gem you can usually count on from him. “This War” is a guitar-driven corker with typically unsubtle lyrics about the state of the world. He forgot, however, to list his own crappy album, and in fact the second half of his generally crappy solo career, among the various ills plaguing the human race. With each successive album, Sting seems to move further away from that brief moment when he was one of the coolest guys on earth, and I move closer to never listening to any of his work again. Sacred Love is a new low, a near-total disaster that lives down to its title.

And I’d bet that Liz Balin has already bought it and hated it.

Miss you, kid.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m exhausted.

I’ve just finished working my 68th hour for this week, and I have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning and go back for more. They’re promising that all this overtime is a temporary situation, but I figure that once we prove we can work all these hours and still turn out the product, there’s no reason the company would ever change a workable system. “But you did it last week,” they’ll say. “Surely if you did it last week you can do it again this week. You don’t want to let the team down, right?”

So my apologies if this installment seems more scattered than most. To paraphrase some famous guy, I was dreaming when I wrote this, so forgive me if it goes astray.

* * * * *

I got a lot of letters about last week’s column, as I expected. What I didn’t expect was that every one of them would be nice, articulate and well-thought-out. I expected some hurt and bitter ranting, and as it turns out, the only one who ranted was me.

Everyone who wrote in noted that they understood where I was coming from, even if they disagreed. Last week’s missive was an attempt to capture an emotion while it burbled just beneath the surface. My anger at the situation has subsided, and mostly turned to sadness and dull grief. I would probably not write the same column the same way now – it would be a little less “fuck you” and a little more “I’ll miss you,” which I think is what many of my correspondents wished for.

My site statistics went through the roof last week as well – more people read the last column than have ever visited my site in one week. While I wish it hadn’t been that one that brought people in, I’d like to thank everyone who read it and came back for more. And I’d especially like to thank all the fine folks who wrote in with their thoughts and feelings. I’m grateful for the chance to connect with you all.

* * * * *

It’s strange to segue from that to this, but I have to get the silly music column up and started again sometime, so here goes:

I used to love the Barenaked Ladies.

This was before they became insanely popular in the mid-’90s, but I’m thankful for that popularity, if only because everyone knows who I’m talking about now when I say “Barenaked Ladies,” and I don’t have to explain that I’m not being dirty. BNL has always been an underrated band, though, even at the height of their popularity. They did it to themselves somewhat, with their carnival-esque concerts and their cartoonish videos for “One Week” and “Pinch Me,” but they’ve always been unfairly typed as a novelty band.

From the start, there’s always been more going on than just funny songs. For every “Be My Yoko Ono” on Gordon, their nifty debut album, there’s a strummed stunner like “What a Good Boy.” Bandleaders Steven Page and Ed Robertson are occasionally remarkable songwriters, and while their bread and butter is catchy, delightful pop, their lyrics often reveal a more knowing, even sinister edge.

The holy trilogy of BNL albums is Gordon, Maybe You Should Drive and Born on a Pirate Ship, three successive records that each expanded on the last in scope and sound. They’ve never written a sweeter song than “Am I the Only One,” or a catchier one than “Life, In a Nutshell,” both from Drive. They’ve also never explored their darker side to greater effect than on Pirate Ship, a consistently inventive tour full of creepy tales of obsession and self-destruction. (If “I Live With It Every Day” is the work of a novelty band, then I’ve got the wrong definition.)

Things just haven’t been the same since, unfortunately. Massive popularity hit with two huge singles, “The Old Apartment” and the insanely catchy “One Week.” And suddenly, it seemed like BNL forgot what they sounded like. 1998’s Stunt was chock full of novelty tunes, like “Who Needs Sleep” and “Alcohol,” and introduced a new, quirkier sound. By comparison, 2000’s Maroon fared better, but the sting seemed to be missing. It was more serious, but less heartfelt, with the exception of the exceptional “Helicopters.”

So what changed? Well, the most obvious difference is the addition of keyboardist Kevin Hearn, who’s been an easy whipping boy since he joined. Hearn is a real synths-and-samples guy, and his keyboard voices and lines account for much of the new music’s more plastic sound. He adds a quantifiable They Might Be Giants-ness to BNL, and unintentionally makes it more difficult to take the band seriously.

But laying all the blame on Hearn is just too easy, and not quite accurate. The tone of BNL music has shifted radically since the first few records, and it’s hard not to imagine that shift as a by-product of success. Since “The Old Apartment” hit big, the Ladies’ strong desire to be liked by everyone has been hard to miss. They seem incapable of simply tossing off wit these days – everything is rethought and revised and labored over until all trace of spontaneity is gone. BNL records are big productions now, with every note and every line in place.

The title of the band’s new album reflects this. It’s called Everything to Everyone, and all by itself the name carries with it a feeling of dread and expectation. It turns out that this new BNL is all about choice. There are no fewer than three versions of the album available – a standard version with all 14 songs, a limited edition with three bonus tracks, and a super-cool and super-expensive version with a loaded DVD. The super-cool version provides you with the greatest choice – three versions of the new album, depending on what type of band you want BNL to be.

It should be no surprise that Everything to Everyone is the band’s most layered, produced, sonically thick album to date. There are those, however, who will want still more layers of sound, and the Ladies have accommodated them: the DVD contains an impressive 5.1 surround sound audio mix of the entire album, giving it an almost epochal sheen. But wait, there’s more! For those like your faithful reviewer, who miss the intimate sound this band used to have, the DVD also contains 11 of the 14 new songs in stripped-down acoustic versions. And there’s video of the recording session as well, which the band set up as a mini-concert: BNL goes back to doing small, living-room-style shows, and You! Are! There!

It would be easy to be cynical about all this marketing, especially since the first three songs on the album live down to expectations. I never again need to hear another song about how much it sucks to be famous, especially one as vacuous and derivative as “Celebrity.” (It starts with the couplet, “Don’t call me a zero, I’m gonna be a hero,” and gets worse from there.) “Maybe Katie” is undoubtedly supposed to be rocking, but it’s just boring. And first single “Another Postcard” is a glib, forced novelty song that might have been amusing, if it weren’t exactly like every other glib, forced novelty song in their catalog.

But then the record takes off, and the idea that I’d ever really hate this band becomes ludicrous. The next 11 songs are the best set that the Barenaked Ladies have spun since Pirate Ship, easily. It’s clear that these songs were written because they were written, not because they would sell records, and that makes all the difference. On the whole, the album is bittersweet and remarkably intelligent, containing a bare minimum of silliness.

Highlights? Okay. “For You” is a delight, an acoustic folk shuffle with a great Ed Robertson melody. “Testing 1,2,3” is the most self-referential song the Ladies have done, wrapping a kiss-off to the fame of past years in a truly catchy pop ditty: “We recognize the present is half as pleasant as our nostalgia for, a past that we resented, recast and reinvented, until it’s how we meant it…” “Aluminum” is one of Page and Robertson’s prettiest songs, and I like that they acknowledge the alternate (read: correct) pronunciation: al-lu-mi-ni-um. “Upside Down” is as savage as this band gets, with Page snarling his way through an off-kilter verse structure. “Unfinished” is superb pop music, a la former BNL reference Brian Wilson. And silly song number two, “Shopping,” is a wonder of Euro-beats and “la-la-las” that was made for the 5.1 mix.

Surprisingly, one of the best songs didn’t make the record – “Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!” is only available on the DVD, but it’s a winner, far superior to “Maybe Katie” and “Celebrity.” But really, the Ladies finally did everything just about right on this album. Even Hearn restricts himself to tasteful piano when he would have used decorative synths before, and his songwriting contributions are extraordinary. Perhaps it’s the experience of hearing so many different versions of these songs in one package, but they feel lived-in, they feel real, for the first time in years.

So what does this ultimately mean for the Barenaked Ladies and their fans? Well, they haven’t quite recaptured the off-the-cuff delight of their early work, but they’ve made great strides toward becoming their own band again here. They’ve given you so many choices, so many entry points, because they really want you to hear these songs, and they have every right to be proud of them. It’s a strange paradox – Everything to Everyone is the band’s most personal set in ages, and it’s designed and marketed like a media event. The identity crisis is everywhere except the music.

And that’s what’s ultimately important. Whatever brings you to this album, be it the 5.1 mix on the DVD, the acoustic versions, the impressive packaging, or what have you, you’ll stick around because of the songs. However many marketing tricks the band and label need to do to get you to hear them, they’re worth it this time. If you’d written off the Barenaked Ladies, as I almost have many times, it’s time to come back. They’ve finally made something that’s again worth the term “criminally underrated.”

Next week, a special dedication.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I was going to write about a number of things this week.

First, I was going to recap the last Red Sox game of the season, and blame not the curse but Grady Little for losing us our best shot at a World Series since the ’80s. I was going to talk a bit about how surprised I am that I like the new Barenaked Ladies album, especially considering how lousy their last couple have been. I may have mentioned music in advertising, and perhaps might have shared a humorous anecdote from the workplace.

But then I heard that Elliott Smith died.

Well, perhaps “died” is not the right term. Smith’s body was found on Tuesday with a knife sticking out of his chest – a knife, police are presuming, Smith himself put there. They’re calling it an “apparent suicide.” Smith was only 34.

This is one of the things that sucks about being me. Most of the artists I really admire are relatively obscure, beneath the public radar. Most people I know have never heard of Elliott Smith, or if they have, they heard of him through me. His death doesn’t affect the general population one whit. And here I am, with all this rage and pain and no one to share it with.

So. A quick primer on Smith, in case you need it. Simply put, he was one of the best songwriters of my generation.

Elliott Smith started his career in a noisy band called Heatmiser. They made three noisy records before they broke up. Smith’s heart was hardly in it, however, and at the same time he launched his solo career with two lo-fi masterpieces, Roman Candle and Elliott Smith, that featured little more than his hushed voice and his gently picked acoustic guitar. But it was his songs, those unpredictable, meandering songs that garnered all the attention.

A third album, Either/Or, caught the ear of director Gus Van Sant, who finally put Smith in the spotlight by using several of his songs in the film Good Will Hunting. You may remember that that film earned a bunch of Oscar nominations, including one for Best Song. The song in question was “Miss Misery” by Elliott Smith, and he looked uneasy and out of place as he performed it at the Oscar ceremony. It’s as if people were asking, “Who is this funny-looking little man, and how did he get up on stage?”

The songs again won the day, as the Good Will Hunting soundtrack brought Smith to the attention of DreamWorks Records, a company known for sticking with artists for creative reasons, not financial ones. Given a major label budget for the first time, Smith delivered XO, one of the best albums of the ’90s. Really. No joke. It’s a big, buoyant, sad, longing master stroke, and everyone should hear it. Many Face Magazine readers were surprised, and none more so than my editor Bennie Green, when I named it the best album of 1998.

If his follow-up, Figure 8, is not quite as good – it’s a little too long, a little too self-righteous – it remains head and shoulders above the work of most songwriters Smith’s age. These are eloquent, majestic songs that couch deeply felt pain in endlessly inventive melodies. Smith never seemed to run out of new ways to twist lines and phrases, and it’s both his attention to songcraft and his penchant for the dark and lonely that led to comparisons with Nick Drake. Sadly, now that comparison seems even more apt.

And yes, I’m heartbroken and sad, but mostly, I’m pissed off. The reasons some have given for Smith’s apparent suicide include chemical dependence and frustration with work on his planned double album From a Basement on the Hill. I say that’s cowardly, pathetic bullshit. Chemical dependence can be overcome. So can artistic frustration. So can a perpetually broken heart. Far be it from me to question Smith’s motives, but his actions in this case were weak and selfish.

Yeah, I’m talking to you, Elliott. Congratulations, you made the world worse. We’ve already seen so much death this year, and to add to it on purpose, and to deny the world your gift, is just unforgivable. I mean, just look at Warren Zevon if you want a comparison. Here’s a guy with immeasurably less talent – don’t argue, it’s true – who, when handed his death sentence, worked until he couldn’t see straight anymore to share his gifts one last time. You had everything in front of you, and you threw it away at 34 with a knife to the heart. What the fuck?

You were alive, Elliott, and nothing is ever hopeless while you’re alive.

So, just a few things I want to say. First, thanks for five great albums, especially that fourth one. I’m sure we’ll get to hear the songs you were working on since then before long, and I look forward to one last visit with your immense talent.

And one more thing.

Fuck you. Fuck you, Elliott, for pissing it all away, and for giving us one more stupid rock and roll martyr. Fuck you for giving up, and through your actions, for making other people want to give up. Fuck you for tainting your beautiful art with your cowardice. Fuck you for making me feel bad for you anyway.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

I’ll miss you.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Sports are stupid.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve uttered the above phrase, I’d be able to buy Fenway Park. Disdain for sporting events – of all kinds, in all varieties – has been a running motif of my life for as long as I can remember. I was forced to play baseball, basketball and soccer as a youngster, and I hated all three. Pointless athletic competition, I’d say. What’s the point?

I’m writing this in the hours before Game Seven of the 2003 American League Championship Series. I’ve watched every game of this series so far, and I’m surprisingly wrapped up in it. The Boston Red Sox are one win away from playing in their first World Series since 1986. The last time they won the World Series was in 1918. If there’s a ball club I would consider “my team,” it’s the Red Sox – I grew up in Massachusetts in a house with a rabid Sox fan, so it’s osmosis more than anything else.

It’s weird, but I’m on pins and needles right now. I’m so stressed and excited I can barely sit still. Oh, did I mention that the ALCS this year pits the Red Sox against the hated New York Yankees? I’d like to say that even if the Sox lose tonight, they’ve played a great series and it’s not who wins or loses and blah blah, but I can’t. Nothing but crushing, terrible defeat is good enough for the Yankees. Most of you reading this probably know by now who won, or you don’t care, but I thought it important to capture this rare moment while it was happening, since I may never watch another sporting event again, because they’re stupid.

So in summary, um, go Sox.

* * * * *

This is going to be a strange analogy, but it works, so I beg you to stick with me.

Those not into music often find it strange when those of us who are describe our relationships with particular bands as exactly that: relationships. It is possible to have a relationship with a band that is just as rewarding, if not more so, than a relationship with a real person. Bands are very much like people – they have opinions and thoughts and particular ways of viewing the world, and they have their own methods of expressing those views. It’s very much like each band member makes up one part of the group’s body, and the amalgam of their shared personalities and skills determines how this new person will move about the world. Bands age just like people, and they can be wounded, maimed and killed like people, too.

One thing that’s extremely difficult for any band to overcome, however, is the loss of its lead singer. The singer is, in most cases, the definable face of the group, and in many cases, the brain as well. If a band, especially a long-running one, must replace its singer, it’s like that person we’ve come to know has been decapitated and grown a new head. This new head looks different, speaks differently and holds different views and opinions from the previous head, and even though the body parts are the same, the new brain will make them move in different ways. It’s like an entirely new person, one which we as fans have to get to know all over again, and it’s little wonder that most fans don’t bother.

See, I told you it would be a strange analogy.

The second getting-to-know-you process would probably be easier if the new heads didn’t have a disturbing tendency towards top-40 radio pop. Time after time, though, talented bands will lose their singers and replace them with new ones, and within two albums they’re suddenly playing synth-heavy love ballads. Van Halen is a good example – they went from “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” with David Lee Roth to talking about nothing but love with Sammy Hagar, and the decline was steep. For a while there, it looked like Steve Hogarth was going to bring Marillion to the same sappy place after Fish left, but that band has blossomed into something wholly different, yet wholly beautiful.

Perhaps the most famous example is Genesis. That band was all but defined by Peter Gabriel in the ’70s, crafting moody soundscapes for his bizarre and creepy lyrics. After he left in 1974, the band auditioned other singers, but eventually settled on their own drummer, Phil Collins. (He’s always been a better drummer than he is a singer, by the way, and listen to Selling England By the Pound if you don’t believe me.) It didn’t take long for Collins to warp Genesis into his personal hit machine, and the less said about later-period albums like Invisible Touch and We Can’t Dance the better.

Still, progressive rock fans continue to debate the merits of the two eras, particularly the earlier Collins albums like Wind and Wuthering. Prog fans like nothing better than a good debate, and now they have another chance at one, since a similar fate has befallen Genesis disciples Spock’s Beard.

If you’ve never heard of the band, the name Spock’s Beard tends to provoke chuckles, but for about a decade, they’ve shared the throne with Dream Theater as one of the best progressive bands of our time. I have a few problems with the term progressive, since it’s used to describe a style that’s regressive if anything, but really what it means is music that’s damn near impossible to play. Genesis, Yes, Dream Theater and Spock’s Beard all share one trait – the musicians that play in these bands are, by necessity, masters at their instruments.

That doesn’t mean they can write good songs, however, as any slog through Abacab or Tormato will show. Spock’s Beard has never had that problem – in fact, the band has often been seen as a vehicle for the songwriting of Neal Morse, their lead singer. Nobody writes a 30-minute song like this guy – he pulls memorable melodies from the air, restates themes in perfect places, and never bores. Last year he wrote almost all of the Beard’s two-hour concept album Snow, a rock opera in the classic tradition.

And then he left.

We’d seen hints of the reason for his departure for several years, but none more forceful than on Snow, with its thinly veiled Christ metaphors. Neal Morse had found God, and his religious faith was calling him elsewhere. Many expected the end of Spock’s Beard, but the remaining members soon announced that they would soldier on. In a very Genesis twist, drummer Nick D’Virgilio would step in on lead vocals.

I will never forget the first time I saw Nick D’Virgilio play. He was touring with Jonatha Brooke, and all by himself he was more than half of her backing band. He sat at a three-piece drum kit with a bass guitar in his lap, and he used both hands to play the bass, his left foot to work the kick drum and his right to work the hi-hat. But wait, there’s more – he played the snare drum with the head of his guitar, shifting his whole body every fourth beat or so. Oh, and he also sang backup vocals. The guy’s amazing.

But still, could Spock’s Beard find its own identity without Morse’s songwriting? The answer, in a manner of speaking, has arrived with Feel Euphoria, the first Beard album with D’Virgilio in the lead spot. And while it’s not bad, it’s certainly the weakest music ever released under the band’s name. Despite the fact that these guys have been playing together for more than 10 years, this album feels like the first tentative steps of a neophyte.

Naturally, it’s not nearly as complex as any of their albums with Neal Morse. There are progressive touches here and there, but mostly Feel Euphoria is straight-ahead rock and pop. There are three ballads, which stay pretty well within the pop cliche realm, and there are several simple rock songs stretched beyond their ideal running times. The album’s centerpiece, the six-part suite “A Guy Named Sid,” feels like the first extended piece D’Virgilio has tried to write – he should probably have scrapped this one and attempted two or three more before recording.

But there’s some pretty stuff here as well, and some things that bode well for the future. D’Virgilio’s voice, for one, is strong and appealing. “The Bottom Line” makes good use of its seven and a half minutes, flipping from one section to another well. The melody of “You Don’t Know,” smack in the middle of “Sid,” is impressive and memorable. The band is tight and plays this simple stuff well, but given their past records, most of this material is beneath them. Keyboardist Ryo Okumoto, especially, never gets to shine, and this guy’s a wizard.

Feel Euphoria is certainly a first step for the new Beard, but even so, it probably could have been better than it is. The first signs of a top-40 direction are here, and the band needs to nip that in the bud as soon as possible. Even without Neal Morse’s direction, the four musicians who make up the Beard are capable of more than they’re showing here, and the next album should demonstrate that.

And hey, if they need a good primer on what made them special, they can always pick up Morse’s own new solo album, Testimony.

Everything that Feel Euphoria lacks is here. Testimony is a massive, two-hour progressive suite, the kind that can only be written by a master. It’s thematically sound all the way through, and it feels like one long, beautiful song. It’s the ultimate excessive prog record – there are horn sections, orchestrated passages, winding keyboard solos, tricky instrumental bridges that last for four minutes, and numerous interludes. There are even three, count ’em, three overtures. It’s the kind of laughably grandiose project that few artists even try for anymore.

And yes, this is the Jesus record that Morse felt he couldn’t make with Spock’s Beard. As the title implies, Testimony tells Neal’s story, focusing on his conversion to Christianity. It’s a topic that has, to my knowledge, not been broached in this style before, and it’s funny to me that one of the most Christian albums of the year was released on Metal Blade Records. It’s also a topic that needed to be handled delicately to fully succeed, and that’s where Morse fails. If there’s one thing prog is not, it’s delicate.

Much of Testimony sounds like Michael W. Smith trying to make The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The lyrics are, in a word, bland – they tell Morse’s tale in the vaguest and most general terms, and infect the record with several typical CCM-style praise songs. My complaint here is not that Morse has made a Jesus record, but that he’s made one that retreads the same ground the Christian music industry has trampled since its birth. “I Am Willing” sounds like Carman at his most worshipful, and “Oh, To Feel Him” is pretty much irredeemable. (Plus, he’s releasing this album to an audience that’s not used to this sort of thing, one that will definitely catch the unintentional homoeroticism in a song called “Oh, To Feel Him.”)

But even if he’s occasionally overzealous, Morse obviously felt every note of this enormous work, as evidenced by the fact that he played almost all of them. Any sound on Testimony that wasn’t made by an orchestral instrument or a drum was probably made by Morse, and I doubt that any artist with an album this year can say that they worked harder on theirs than Neal can. (The drums, by the way, were played by Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy.) Musically, this is mostly fantastic, and it contains all the hallmarks of Morse’s best work, kicked up a notch or two. Testimony‘s two hours fly by, propelled by Morse’s sense of flow and unity.

If this is the last we hear of Neal Morse – and it may very well be – it’s a good way to go out. He’s made an album that he’s obviously wanted to make for a long time, and he’s poured everything he has into it. I hope, however, that he returns to music, and even to Christian music, once he gains some perspective on his newfound faith. Testimony is a musically rich album that, unfortunately, could have used more depth lyrically. But Morse is still better off than his former band – we already know him, and it’s going to take a bit more time to get to know them again.

See you in line Tuesday morning.