Dammit. Why does this always happen?

I’ve been waiting for months to tell you all that the Feeling’s phenomenal 2006 album, Twelve Stops and Home, is finally available in the U.S. I paid import price for it, and I don’t regret that for a second, because Twelve Stops is one of the finest pure pop platters to come along in many a moon. It plays like a survey of the last 40 years of amazing British pop, like 10cc and Supertramp, mixed with more modern melodic masters like Jellyfish.

It’s a sweet treat of an album, a glorious and grand confection, and I called it my third-favorite record of last year. I understand, though, that $20-plus is too much for most people to pay for a CD, even an amazing one, so I’ve been advising people to wait for the domestic release.

And now it’s out on these shores, finally, thanks to Cherrytree Records. But instead of cheering and sending you all out to your local CD store, I’m about to recommend you hit amazon.co.uk, because the American version is just… not right.

First, there’s the cover. The original release’s packaging may not have been a masterpiece, but it was bright and colorful and kind of goofy, like the record itself. It’s much better than the drab, bootleg-looking photo-and-logo snoozefest on the American release. Honestly, given the same three elements and 10 minutes, I could have designed something a lot better than this – it gives the impression that the album is just as lifeless as its jacket illustration, and nothing could be further from the truth.

That by itself wouldn’t be a problem, but they’ve gone and messed with the track order, too. This is the same type of thing that Capitol used to do with the early 1960s Beatles albums, and I can’t believe U.S. labels are still doing it.

The original Twelve Stops opens with three of the most perfect pop singles in years, one right after another – the rock anthem “I Want You Now,” the groovy ‘70s-style “Never Be Lonely,” and the inescapably hummable “Fill My Little World.” Slow burner “Sewn” was saved until later, and the more serious back half benefited immensely from the Cars-esque “Love It When You Call,” at track eight. It was, honestly, a perfect running order.

Which must be why it’s been obliterated for American audiences. Twelve Stops now opens with “Sewn,” a six-minute ballad that really belies the tone of the rest of the record. The front half now contains all the singles, including “Love It When You Call,” and the great “I Want You Now” has been relegated to track six, despite being the no-brainer opening shot. And without “Call” to break it up, the second half is now one piano ballad after another, with only “Helicopter” standing out.

Honestly, why do they do this? I understand we live in an iPod world now, and people don’t care too much about track orders anymore. But listen – I can take the U.K. version of this album and make a fan out of anyone just by playing the first three songs. I can’t do the same thing with the U.S. version, and that’s a shame. “I Want You Now,” especially, is an immediate grabber, whereas “Sewn,” nice as it is, will bore the hell out of first-time listeners.

I wish I could tell you all to go buy it. Many of you probably think I’m just being anal, and maybe I am, but the idea of the album as a whole is on the way out, and I think it’s worth fighting for and preserving. Twelve Stops and Home is still an incredibly fun and well-made pop record, whichever incarnation you choose to hear, but trust me – the original release just works better. It’s about flow, something the new version just doesn’t have, for reasons I just don’t understand.

* * * * *

All right, enough griping. I’ve had a strange, busy week, and as it’s the end of February, I’ve got no new music to talk about, so I thought I’d take the easy way out and do one of my patented looks ahead. March and April are practically drowning in new records that I’m simply dying to hear, and May is looking equally awesome. It’s a virtual tsunami of new tunes, and here’s a weather report:

The big news next week is Neon Bible, the second full-length from the Arcade Fire. I’m one of those people who thought their debut, Funeral, was pretty good, but no masterpiece, and I’m somewhat dismayed that the same critics who idolized that record are using terms like “religious experience” to describe the follow-up. But what can you do. What I’ve heard sounds creepy, dramatic and swell. The album also comes in a nifty lenticular box. Because nothing says “indie” like expensive lenticular boxes.

Also next week is Four Winds, the scouting party EP ahead of Bright Eyes’ latest record, Cassadaga. Plus, former Spock’s Beard mastermind Neal Morse keeps on progging for Jesus on Sola Scriptura, Lovedrug returns with Everything Starts Where it Ends, and we get the debut record from pop culture junkies No More Kings. That last one I heard courtesy of my friend Jeff Maxwell, and it contains winning pop gems about Knight Rider, the Karate Kid and other ‘80s icons. Sounds like it would be too cheeky by half, but it’s actually pretty good.

I’m excited to go into the record store on March 13 and buy both Type O Negative’s Dead Again and the Innocence Mission’s We Walked in Song. I’ve gotten some weird looks from the counter clerks before, but I think this one will top them all. Type O’s album is 10 songs over 77 minutes, and from all the pre-release buzz, it sounds like a return to the slow, Black Sabbath-inspired doom metal (with a smirk, of course) of their first couple of albums.

March 20 will see the new Modest Mouse, called We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. It’s supposedly the most robust production they’ve ever released, which has turned up a few noses. I’ve never been a member of the Church of Isaac Brock, and I thought the last couple of Modest Mouse records were merely pretty good, so we’ll see. Also that week, a new Ted Leo, a strange little beast called Drums and Guns from Low, and the new Joy Electric, called The Otherly Opus. I went on and on about the new Joy E single a couple of weeks ago, and I’m still not sick of it.

March 27 sees Grant Lee Phillips’ fifth solo album, Strangelet. I didn’t really talk about his fourth, Nineteeneighties, which came out last year, but I should have. It’s full of lovely low-key renditions of classic ‘80s indie-rock songs, like the Pixies’ “Wave of Mutilation” and R.E.M.’s “So. Central Rain,” sung in that unimpeachable voice. A quiet little curiosity, to be sure, but a surprisingly fun one. Still, I’m excited to hear Phillips get back to the business of writing his own songs, as they’re almost always excellent.

Fountains of Wayne roars back on April 3 with Traffic and Weather, and if it’s all as clever and hummable as the single, “Someone to Love,” I’ll be in heaven. Also that week is Jonatha Brooke’s new one, Careful What You Wish For – a snippet of the title song from that one is on her MySpace site, and it’s terrifically Beatlesque. Plus, I saw the track listing – no covers, which is a good thing. (Her last effort, Back in the Circus, was weighted down by ill-advised renditions of “Fire and Rain” and “God Only Knows.”)

Marillion’s Somewhere Else hits on April 9. I’ve heard about half of it, including all the potential singles, like “Most Toys” and “Thankyou Whoever You Are,” but also including epic album tracks like the title song and “Last Century for Man.” So far, sadly, I haven’t heard anything that’s given me chills. I’ll reserve judgment until I have the whole thing in front of me, but thus far, it’s not a patch on the marvelous Marbles. Shame, really.

The following day, we get that aforementioned Bright Eyes album, Cassadaga. The week after that, on April 17, we’ll greet the arrival of Year Zero, the new Nine Inch Nails album. Coming only two years after the last one, Year Zero supposedly plays like a cut-and-paste series of atmospheres. Which could be good and bad, but at least it seems adventurous, something the weak With Teeth definitely wasn’t. But this is from a guy who thinks Pretty Hate Machine is boring as hell, and The Fragile is pretty much brilliant. Your mileage may vary.

Anyway, on April 24, we get the return of Fishbone with Still Stuck in Your Throat; the debut of Tom (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave) Morello’s new political solo project, The Nightwatchman; and the new Cowboy Junkies, At the End of Paths Taken. Also, the new Porcupine Tree will hit stores – it’s a 50-minute unbroken suite about media saturation and the decline of civilization, with the best title of the year so far: Fear of a Blank Planet.

And now we get into the more speculative end of things. I’m usually pretty hesitant about any release date that’s more than two months away, considering how unpredictable the music biz is, so take these dates as the tentative, uncertain, easily shakable things they are.

But as of right now, Rush is slated to return on May 1 with their 18th studio full-lengther, Snakes and Arrows. And Tori Amos will hopefully end her streak of suckage with American Doll Posse, but don’t hold your breath. The following week, Bjork hits with her reportedly bugfuck insane new album Volta, and Kill Rock Stars releases a two-CD set of Elliott Smith rarities called New Moon.

And on May 15, Wilco saunters back to store shelves with Sky Blue Sky. Let’s hope it’s not as godawful boring as A Ghost is Born. Also on May 15, Rufus Wainwright will give us Release the Stars, his fifth album, which reportedly contains a song called “Between My Legs.” Fascinating… Wainwright is coming off of his two finest albums, Want One and Want Two, and I hope he didn’t lose any of his sense of drama and grandeur. We need some unabashed romanticism these days.

The furthest out my crystal ball can see right now is June 5, which will bring us Ryan Adams’ new album, Easy Tiger, and Chris Cornell’s second solo project, Carry On. (It will also bring me my 33rd birthday, so that’s all right.) The back half of the year should also see us new ones from Michael Roe, the 77s, the Swirling Eddies, U2, and Scottish singer Fish. We already have a title for that last one – Thirteenth Star – because that’s just the way Fish operates: title first, then cover art, then songs. Hey, it seems to work for him…

So yeah, that’s a lot of new music. If even half of it is as good as I expect, then 2007 could be the best year in recent memory. And that makes me a happy little junkie.

* * * * *

One last thing before I go. I need to plug my dear friend Dr. Tony Shore, who’s just released the first installment of his new podcast. He calls it the ObviousPopCast, and you can get it here. The first show includes tunes from Fountains of Wayne, the Feeling, ELO and Jellyfish, among others – the music’s so good that you can just skip over Shore’s endless, “humorous” prattling and still have a good time. (Just kidding, Doc!)

Next week, we open the Neon Bible.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m pretty proud of my immune system. I identified with George Carlin when he did that routine about swimming in the septic tanks as a child, to toughen up the ol’ antibodies. My immune system, to put it mildly, kicks all kinds of ass, and to prove it, I haven’t been sick enough to miss a day of work in years.

But this week, some kind of mutant viral apocalypse thing wormed its way past my defenses (after two weeks of trying, mind you) and incapacitated me. I’ve been sneezing, coughing, blowing my nose, shivering and all-around aching since Tuesday, and it’s just not going away. I missed what amounted to two days of work this week, and I’m still on the long road to recovery. And I almost bailed out of writing the column this week, too, but I just couldn’t blow off that responsibility, too.

I will, however, try to keep it short. A few appetizers, a light meal, and then we’re done.

* * * * *

I don’t watch American Idol. To put it bluntly, I think it’s a disease, a horrifying sign of what the music business has become. They’re not looking for musicians on American Idol, they’re looking for malleable pop stars, people with good voices and no artistic ambition, people who will sing the songs presented to them and dance the choreography written for them and cash the checks and shut up. Not to get off on a rant or anything…

But this week, I actually found a reason to seek out Idol footage on YouTube. His name is Chris Sligh, and he’s a pudgy, bespectacled anti-star with a husky voice. He auditioned with Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose,” a song I admit to kind of liking, but that’s not what sent me scouring the web, hoping to find illegally reproduced portions of the show before YouTube’s crack legal team could discover them and purge them.

No, it was this – for his second song of the competition, Sligh chose Mute Math’s “Typical.”

Now, this isn’t the band’s best song, but give the boy credit – he pulled it off. And more importantly, millions of people got to hear a tune from one of the best new bands in many a moon, and from one of the best new albums of 2006. It’s the kind of exposure a band at their level could only dream of, and they didn’t have to pay a red cent for it. (Hell, considering the royalties, they got paid for it.)

And it was probably the only time in American Idol history that an actual, you know, good song was featured. I can only hope that some of the viewers were inspired to check their local record store (or iTunes) for Mute Math’s work. Kudos to Chris Sligh for his great taste, and for standing up for that taste on national television. I don’t watch, but if I did, I’d be rooting for him.

Oh, and one of Sligh’s competitors is named Sundance Head. So that’s kind of cool, too.

* * * * *

I used to get excited when Tori Amos would announce a new album. Seriously, I would lose sleep wondering what it would sound like, what melodic and emotional delights awaited me.

Now, I just kind of sigh heavily, and occasionally laugh. It’s sad, really.

Tori will return on May 1 with a new record called (I’m not making this up) American Doll Posse. And apparently, she has some vague memory of what it was like when she was actually shocking, when she would write elegant songs about masturbating with pages of the Bible. Those elements appear to be making a comeback on this new album, if the pre-release photo is any indication – it shows Amos in her Sunday best, standing outside a church with a Bible in one hand, the word “shame” written on the other, and a trickle of blood running from her leg.

Honestly, go look. It’s almost a parody of shocking. Sometimes I wonder if, after so many years of tuneless frittering, Amos can go back and reclaim the velvet punch of her first few albums. And then I see something like this, something that’s such an obvious and clumsy attempt to go backwards, and it just makes me hate myself for even wishing it.

But I’ll buy it, of course. And I’ll hope against hope that it’s actually good.

* * * * *

Quick Oscar predictions: It’s Martin Scorsese’s year. Even Susan Lucci won a damn daytime Emmy, and if Scorsese can’t win with his finest drama since Goodfellas, then he just can’t win. So here’s my breakdown:

Best Actor: Forest Whitaker.
Best Actress: Helen Mirren.
Best Supporting Actor: Mark Wahlberg.
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson.
Best Director: Martin Scorsese.
Best Original Screenplay: Babel.
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Departed.
Best Picture: The Departed.

Come back next week to see how I did.

* * * * *

I’ve been told by a few reliable sources that January 2007 was the worst January in the history of the music biz, as far as sales figures are concerned. While this is certainly sad news for my friends on the retail side of things, I’m more baffled by this than anything, and I think it shows the incredible disconnect between the music business and the actual music that’s being produced.

Because I’ll tell you this for free: the first two months of this year have been, musically speaking, amazing.

Here, I’ll throw out a few names for you. The Shins. Bloc Party. Of Montreal. Loney, Dear. The Apples in Stereo. Menomena. The Brothers Martin. All of these acts released great-to-fantastic records in January and February, and if the music business had any idea what to do with great stuff like Bloc Party or Menomena, they’d be million sellers. There’s no reason the Shins, at least, shouldn’t go platinum – it’s a record most people would like, if they’d only get to hear it.

So yeah, 2007’s on a roll, and it’s not likely to stop anytime soon. Case in point: the new one by Explosions in the Sky came out this week, and it’s beautiful stuff. It’s called All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, but behind that emo-tastic title is some of the most glorious instrumental rock music you’re likely to hear anywhere.

All of a Sudden is 43 minutes without one lyric, which may send some people screaming. But I’d be willing to bet that anyone who gives Explosions in the Sky a chance will hear what I hear in this music – a deep emotional center that gushes to the top like a geyser. This is also the most difficult kind of music for me to write about, since it simply has to be experienced. The old adage about dancing about architecture is absolutely true in this case.

Here’s what I can tell you. Explosions in the Sky is a quintet from Texas, consisting of two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer and a pianist. That sounds like a pretty normal, rock ‘n’ roll lineup, but this group utilizes that lineup to write and record soundtracks for dreams. The songs are lengthy excursions, with endless, aching crescendos that explode into furious, cathartic bliss. The twin guitars of Munaf Rayani and Mark Smith climb atop one another, intertwining and reaching for wondrous new heights, while the rhythm section grounds them as much as they can.

All of a Sudden, the band’s fourth, is very similar to their other three, but better. The sounds are more varied, and they make fuller use of Aaron Hochman’s piano, particularly on the painfully gorgeous “What Do You Go Home To.” The band occasionally lets it fly, the five of them crashing together into a cacophony of thunderous strength – see “Welcome, Ghosts” or the pulsing power of the opener, “The Birth and Death of the Day.” That song ebbs and flows masterfully, using its nearly eight minutes to take you somewhere and back.

But nowhere do Explosions in the Sky accomplish their mission better than on the 13-minute masterpiece “It’s Natural to Be Afraid.” The song starts off almost inaudibly, with backwards noises and a chiming clean guitar, which eventually makes way for delicate piano chords. Less than a minute in, and it’s already more beautiful and otherworldly than I can tell you, and it just gets better. The noisy background crescendos up from behind the fragile melody, overcoming it, before fading back to watch little guitar figures burst from the ground and blossom.

The music explodes and reforms several times over the course of the piece, finally building up to an astonishing eruption around the 11-minute mark, and it disintegrates from there, ending with the same lovely backwards sounds with which it began. It’s an amazing piece of work, possibly the best thing this band has done, and while you could chastise them for repeating their formula from record to record, this song shows just how far they’ve taken the sound, and how sweet the rewards of the journey have been.

All of a Sudden ends with “So Long, Lonesome,” its brevity (3:40) giving it the feeling of a coda. But it truly is the beautiful comedown, all pianos and unearthly guitar noises, and its melody is delightfully sad. There isn’t a wasted second on this album, and it plays like one cohesive piece, with peaks and valleys, each serving the whole.

But beyond that bout of theoretical claptrap, this album will move you like few other instrumental records will. With All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, Explosions in the Sky have crafted their finest work, but what makes it sing (metaphorically speaking) is the depth of feeling, the powerful emotional undertow that courses through every moment of this music. This is a band in search of beauty beyond words, and in the best moments on this album (meaning, basically, all of it), they find it.

* * * * *

Next week, I’m not sure. Still working on Zappa, though it doesn’t look likely that I’ll have that done in time. So it all depends on what shows up in the mail between now and then. But March 6 brings the flood, with new ones from the Arcade Fire, Blackfield, Bright Eyes, Lovedrug, Neal Morse and No More Kings. 2007 just keeps ‘em coming…

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The internet has changed everything.

I know, I know. Thanks, Captain Obvious. Any more brilliant insights for us?

But hear me out. I’m an old-fashioned guy, who does an old-fashioned thing at least once a week – I make a trip to the record store. And I buy CDs, those plastic discs that come in plastic cases with artwork and stuff, because I like having a physical object – music has no context for me without it. So you might say I’ve been resistant to the download revolution, only using iTunes when I have to, and never (well, almost never) downloading music for free.

And yet, the internet has still utterly changed how my musical obsession works. Here’s how it used to go: I’d walk into the music store on Tuesdays and browse, with only a vague idea of what albums would be released that week. I’d buy what I wanted from one store, then pop around to a couple of others to see if they stocked anything the first one didn’t. Very occasionally, I’d get to see an industry mag like Ice, and would furiously copy down album titles and release dates, but that was as close as I came to knowing what would be out when.

Working for a music magazine in the late ‘90s changed some of that – I got promos, and release lists, but still, the majority of my research was done on the phone or through the mail. But since then, my entire process has changed, and I don’t know if it’s for the better. I know more in advance now about my anticipated albums than I ever thought I would, but some of the fun and mystery is gone.

Anyway, here’s how it works now: I’ll scour some of the better sites for release information, visit the home pages of a few of the labels and bands that I know don’t report their releases to the portal sites, and compile a list. I know, usually up to five months in advance, when an album is set for release, what’s on it, what it sounds like, and how long it is. None of that information influences my decision to buy a record, you understand – it just informs my anticipation.

The art of the single release has completely changed as well. Used to be, a music junkie like myself would have to glue himself to the radio for hours to hear new songs. You could call in to the DJ and request new tunes, but you were still at their mercy. You could go buy the single (on 45rpm vinyl or cassette, natch), but you had no other way of hearing what your favorite band was up to before the album hit stores.

Not so anymore – most bands release songs months in advance of their albums, online for free. Some bands even put whole new albums up on their Myspace sites weeks before their release, citing the theory that if the music is good, giving it away won’t hamper sales. The world wide web has allowed lower-profile musicians like Jonathan Coulton to build fanbases by essentially giving free samples, and letting fans spread it around the net at will. In the old days, Coulton wouldn’t have had a chance without a label contract. Now, he’s an internet sensation.

This is all obvious, I know, but I still marvel at how this technology has altered the way I approach new music. 10 years ago, there was no such thing as an e-card, a promotional device record labels use to give a taste of a new album. And now, they’re everywhere, and they bring with them full songs – whole meals instead of little snacks.

Case in point: here is the e-card for Fountains of Wayne’s new album, Traffic and Weather, scheduled for release on April 3. That’s seven weeks away, and yet, the e-card offers an uncut stream of the first single, “Someone to Love.” And already, the song has reaffirmed my faith in the Fountaineers, and moved Traffic to near the top of my list of most anticipated records of 2007. Which is what a good e-card, and a good single, should do.

Of course, I was already excited, since FoW’s last album, the great Welcome Interstate Managers, made #3 on my 2003 top 10 list. Some people refer to Fountains as a guilty pleasure, but I just think of them as a witty, wonderful pop band. Their songs are unfailingly catchy and hummable, it’s true, but while many of them are silly (“Halley’s Waitress,” the hit “Stacy’s Mom”), many others sum up the sadness and ennui of modern life with grace (“Valley Winter Song,” “Hackensack”).

“Someone to Love” is, amazingly, both. It chugs along on a marvelous pop groove, and its chorus is little more than “a-ah, a-ah ahh” and the title phrase over and over, and it sparkles like the silly pop song it undoubtedly is. (The first 10 times I heard it, I felt compelled to sing along with every word. That impulse has passed somewhat, but I still can’t help myself from joining in on “magazine, aimed at teens.” Don’t know why.) The lyrics are littered with pop cultural references (Coldplay, The King of Queens), and the whole thing seems to be delivered with a smirk.

But look deeper, and you’ll see that FoW mainstays Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood have crafted a perfect parable of modern life. “Someone to Love” is the story of Seth Shapiro and Beth McKenzie, two young, single New Yorkers who can’t seem to find that special someone. They’re both professionals – Shapiro is a lawyer in the food industry, McKenzie a photo tech for a teen magazine – and their lives are simultaneously full and empty. And it’s obvious to everyone listening through verses one and two that they belong together, which makes the sucker punch in verse three (which I won’t ruin here) even funnier and sadder.

This is what FoW does best. In 100 years, when our turn-of-the-century civilization is long buried, researchers need look no further than Fountains of Wayne albums to find out what metropolitan life in the early ‘00s was really like. “Someone to Love” is a great song, and a good sign for Traffic and Weather. The track list holds other potential delights, with titles like “Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim” and (snicker) “Revolving Dora,” and given how good the first single is, I’m expecting a superb record here.

* * * * *

Of course, the more obscure you are, the more important internet promotion is. Some people consider Fountains of Wayne obscure, but hell, they’re on a major label, and they have two Grammy nominations under their belts. Plus, they play music that’s easy to promote – catchy, radio-ready pop. The net is helpful to a band like FoW, but not crucial.

That’s not the case with Joy Electric, Ronnie Martin’s one-man show on Tooth and Nail Records. For more than a decade, Martin has been making beautifully bizarre electronic pop, using nothing but vintage analog synthesizers. His material requires a total immersion, because it sounds like nothing else around – these are not techno-dance tunes, they’re fully fleshed-out pop songs (and often pop-punk songs, and just as often prog-rock songs) played on burbling synthesizers, and sung in Martin’s breathy whisper of a voice.

No one on the planet is doing quite what Ronnie Martin is doing, which means there’s no easy marketing niche he can fall into. All he can do is record his stuff and put it out there, and hope that the people who would enjoy it somehow find it. But the internet has made that crapshoot a thousand times more fruitful – Ronnie has a website and a Myspace site, and he makes good use of both.

Here’s the interesting thing: Martin could just continue doing what he does, over and over, but he’s a much more restless artist. If you don’t like synthesizers and dismiss their sound out of hand, you probably won’t hear it, but Martin’s music has evolved and grown over 10 full-lengths and half a dozen EPs, and he keeps evolving. His last one, The Ministry of Archers, debuted a new Moog-based sound over some of the most percussive tracks of his career. And his new one, The Otherly Opus, out March 20, apparently takes that sound and strips it down, with the focus this time on layer after layer of vocals.

You can hear what I mean on the Myspace site linked above – Martin has released “Red Will Dye These Snows of Silver” there, and it’s extraordinary. Vocals have always been Martin’s weak point, but later years have found him really growing into his voice, and using effects to bolster it. “Red Will Dye” is simply loaded with countermelodies, Martin’s voice weaving in and out of itself – those powerhouse “OH-OH”s are awesome, and the free-wheeling “Whoo!” before each chorus is splendid.

My only problem with this song is that it’s too short – I want to hear more of this new direction, and pronto. Martin has called The Otherly Opus “cursed,” but if the results are all as fascinating as this song, then the painful birthing process will have been worth it. This new Joy E still sounds like nothing else I’ve heard, but it also sounds like little else in Ronnie Martin’s catalog. Listen to 1994’s Melody, and then listen to this. You’ll be surprised it’s the same guy making all the sounds, both instrumental and vocal.

Martin’s music can be strange and off-putting at first – he’s constructed his own little universe, and established his own rules for it. But once you’re in, you’ll find his work fantastically rewarding. I’ve listened to “Red Will Dye These Snows of Silver” probably 25 times now (artificially inflating Martin’s numbers on his Myspace ticker – sorry, Ronnie!), and I’m not tired of it. On the contrary, I hear new things each time I spin it, and if the new record is all this dark and intricate, I expect I’ll find it as immersive as just about everything else Joy E has done.

* * * * *

So yeah, the internet has been a good thing for Ronnie Martin, but there is no band on Earth that has used the ‘net to its fullest potential like Marillion. This British quintet was one of the first bands to create a community around their website, and their amazingly loyal fanbase has enabled them to do things most bands can only dream of. Marillion has no record label but their own, and twice now their thousands upon thousands of fans have funded expensive recording projects by pre-ordering new albums before the band lays a single note down on tape.

Their last album, the double-disc Marbles, was paid for and promoted solely on pre-orders, and the fans sent its two singles into the UK top 20, a tremendous feat for a band with no big-label marketing. It’s doubly impressive since Marbles was an uncompromising masterpiece, a record full of slowly unfolding, moody pieces that take multiple listens to fully grasp. It’s difficult to say just what Marillion sounds like – they’re equally at home composing four-minute pop gems like “Don’t Hurt Yourself” and 18-minute multi-part epics like “Ocean Cloud.” But they are one of the great British rock bands, as evidenced by their longevity, and the depth of their catalog.

Their new album, Somewhere Else, is their 14th, and it’s out on April 9 in the UK. No pre-orders this time – the band apparently made enough money on the last two albums and tours to fund this one, which is good news. As usual, information about the record is slowly leaking out in advance, and this week, the single was sent to radio stations in Europe. It’s called “See It Like a Baby,” a title I instantly hated.

But here’s how much I love this band. I read on a message board that the single was in rotation on Morow, a progressive rock radio station. So I listened, for hours on end, waiting for it. Morow’s setup is such that you can only see what song is coming up next, not what songs are slated for hours down the road, so it was a process of wading through hours of widdly keyboard solos and Dungeons and Dragons lyrics to get to what I wanted to hear.

But I finally got there. I recorded it, and I’ve listened roughly 20 times since.

And you know, I really… don’t like it.

I’m trying, but “See It Like a Baby” just doesn’t captivate me. It’s nice – it floats along on some mellow electric piano and nifty bass, but the verses meander, the chorus is repetitive, and there isn’t much else, save for a good guitar solo. A decent bridge could have put this song over, or at least lifted it to the level of “Genie,” the weakest song on Marbles. Honestly, it’s a grower, but it still strikes me as a b-side, and my excitement for the album has been, unfortunately, a bit muted.

And here’s the flip side of all this advance information the internet has made possible – what do I do with this feeling? The album is still an agonizing eight weeks away, so I can’t tell if “Baby” is representative, or if it slots into the album nicely, or what. The problem with having this much info is that I want the rest, right now. There are clips of six other songs up on the band’s Myspace page, but none are long enough to give me a full impression – the album sounds more live-band and more rocking than Marbles, but that’s all I can tell.

It’s frustrating, and it’s almost enough to make me wish I hadn’t gone hunting for the little tidbits that are out there. As much as advance singles are interesting, I’m an albums guy through and through, and I want the context, the rest of the story, before I make up my mind. But I can’t have that, so I spin “Baby” over and over, trying to like it, and imagining what the rest of Somewhere Else might sound like.

I want to like it… I want to like it…

Anyway, it will be March 20 before I know whether Joy E maintained their standard of excellence, and April 3 before I get to hear what I hope will be 13 more pop gems from Fountains of Wayne, and then April 9 (plus a week for shipping from the UK) before I find out what’s happened to Marillion. And I plan to spend those weeks between playing the three singles again and again, and cursing the internet.

And, of course, finding out everything I can about records scheduled for May, June and July.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

As I’m sure most of you are aware, I’m a reporter at a local paper in a suburb of Chicago. That means I’ve spent the last two days (despite the date up top, I’m writing this on Feb. 16) researching, writing about and thinking about Thursday’s shooting at Northern Illinois University.

I don’t have a lot to say about this tragedy, except that my thoughts are with the families of the victims. And I’m glad to be given the opportunity through this column to think and write about something else for a little while.

* * * * *

I’m not sure why Glen Hansard isn’t a rock star.

As you may have guessed, I’ve recently caught up with most of the world in seeing (and absolutely loving) Once, John Carney’s love letter to music and its ability to connect people. Its star is Hansard, who also wrote or co-wrote all the songs, and he’s wonderful to watch. He plays a broken-hearted street musician in Dublin who meets a pretty Czech girl, writes some songs with her, records a demo, and then leaves for London to resume his life. That’s it, that’s the whole movie. But it’s magic.

The scene of real-life sweethearts Hansard and Marketa Irglova fumbling their way through “Falling Slowly” at a music store is one of the best bits of film I’ve seen this year. As a pianist who has backed up songwriting guitarists before, I can tell you this is exactly how it happens – Irglova, who actually co-wrote the song in question in real life, fumbles to find some countermelody that fits, and tries out a few harmony vocal lines. By the end, they’re soaring together, and the effect is incredibly moving.

It helps that the song is superb, as is every song in the movie. Hansard is the lead singer and guitarist for a band called the Frames, and after seeing the film, I bought a couple of their records. I’m not sure why they’re not more famous. Despite the Damien Rice-ness of a few of their tunes, they have an appealing sound, and Hansard’s voice is a delight. He has the look, the songs, the voice, the whole thing, so why isn’t this guy a star?

Beats me. But at the risk of jumping on a bandwagon long after it leaves the station, I highly recommend Once. It’s my favorite movie of 2007, edging out No Country for Old Men and Juno. I was expecting a romantic comedy with music in it, and what I got was a genuine, beautiful exploration of music itself, and what it means to two people in orbit around each other. Get the soundtrack, too – if nothing else, you’ll crack up at “Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy.” And if you have a heart, you’ll swoon for “Falling Slowly,” which had better win that damn Oscar next week.

* * * * *

Somehow, until earlier this week, I’d missed the biggest new release news of the month, at least in my little world.

Next Monday marks the U.K. unveiling of Join With Us, the second album by the Feeling. You may recall that I named Twelve Stops and Home, the band’s debut, my third-favorite album of 2006, praising up and down the sparkling, optimistic, nostalgic pop tunes that cover every inch of it. What I’ve heard of Join With Us sounds exactly the same as the debut, only bigger and more ambitious. I’m excited to hear the whole thing.

But then, I respond well to this type of thing, and many others don’t. It’s the usual purview of music critics to always look forward, to search for the next new thing. There is nothing cool or new about the Feeling – what you get with them, despite the soft-rock tag they’re often saddled with, is 40 years of British pop history put into a blender and served with a wink and a smile. Their music incorporates the Beatles, Paul McCartney’s solo stuff, 10cc, ELO, Supertramp, Queen, and a dozen other ‘60s and ‘70s acts I love.

I’m a big fan of the past, though, and I fear there’s a great danger, musically speaking, in losing our sense of history. I buy new music all the time, and I certainly wouldn’t want to give the impression that I reject the innovations of new bands, but they really knew how to write a song in the ‘60s, and I think many younger acts could learn a lot from looking to the past.

If there’s a criticism to be leveled at Twelve Stops and Home, it’s that it didn’t move things forward at all. It’s a pastiche without incorporating those influences into something more modern. That’s valid, although it doesn’t make the record itself any less enjoyable. Musical nostalgia can be a wonderful thing, if it’s done properly – see Sloan, or Jellyfish, or even some of Beck’s efforts. But if you see music as a movement, these bands didn’t contribute any momentum whatsoever.

The same criticism applies to Lenny Kravitz. Here’s a guy who has picked a window in time – basically 1965 to 1975 – and refuses to acknowledge that any music was made before or since. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. His first few albums are unassailable, especially the raw Are You Gonna Go My Way, but he’s been on a backslide lately, bottoming out with Baptism, 2004’s ode to how much Kravitz’ life sucks now that he’s a rock star.

That’s why it’s so good to hear him back in the saddle with his unfortunately-titled eighth album, It Is Time for a Love Revoution. This is the leanest ‘70s rock album Kravitz has made since Circus, and while nothing here is even remotely new or original, it does rock. Love Revolution features some of the most snarling guitar riffs in Kravitz’ canon, and some of his least cheesy ballads, and the result sounds like something pulled straight from Lester Bangs’ record collection. Kind of.

Believe it or not, despite the catchy rockers like “Bring it On” and “Love Love Love,” the highlights here are the slower songs. “A Long and Sad Goodbye” ranks with Kravitz’ best work, and the guitar solo that makes up the last two minutes is terrific. That’s not to say the foot-stompers are bad, though. I even like the loose “Dancin’ Til Dawn,” which brings in a rare outside musician, saxophonist Lenny Pickett, to add some organic ‘70s disco-funk feel. (Kravitz again played most of the instruments here, except for the odd guitar flourish and string arrangement.)

The problem with Love Revolution is the same one that’s dogged Kravitz for his whole career – he may actually be the worst lyricist in rock ‘n’ roll. Here is the opening from “Will You Marry Me,” just as a f’rinstance: “I want to do this thing, I don’t want no drama, mama, it’s love I bring, ooh.” Later he rhymes “passion” and “fashion” (as in “love never goes out of…”), and romances his girl with this couplet: “You are my favorite attraction, you give me real satisfaction.”

Here is the chorus to “Good Morning”: “Top of the morning to you, good morning to you, eh hey, oh oh oh oh oh, it’s another day in the world in which we live.” Seriously. I know most rock lyrics from the ‘70s were stupid, but Kravitz clearly has nothing to say, and gets by on the strength of his music and melodies. Which, admittedly, are quite strong on this album.

Well, there is one moment where the lyrics take the stage. Everyone and their sister is making a political statement about the war in Iraq these days, and Kravitz is no exception, although he waits until the final two tracks of Love Revolution to do so. “Back in Vietnam” is a sterling rocker, one that makes me think of Donald Rumsfeld’s famous quote, “I don’t do quagmires.” It’s saddled with terrible lyrics, of course (“We’re gonna fly over the world inside our giant eagle, we do just what we want and don’t care if it’s illegal”), but the point is clear.

Faring much better is the semi-fragile closer, “I Want to Go Home.” Sung from the point of view of a soldier who has lost his faith in the war, this song is the most poignant thing here, and Kravitz to his credit keeps it simple and sparse. It’s a good closer to the first Lenny Kravitz album in ages that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Kravitz spent three years writing songs for Love Revolution, and it shows – it’s his strongest set of tunes in 15 years.

Also returning with a surprisingly strong record is Sheryl Crow. For some reason, I can’t stop buying her albums – I haven’t unconditionally loved one yet, and I downright hated the last two. But the good stuff from her self-titled album and The Globe Sessions keep me coming back, I guess. I heard good things about Detours, Crow’s sixth album, so I bit the bullet once again. And finally, Crow has crafted an album that doesn’t immediately make me regret buying it.

Detours is no masterpiece, but in its best moments, it’s an old-time protest folk-rock record. It opens with “God Bless This Mess,” an acoustic ditty that references 9/11 and the Iraq war (“He led us as a nation into a war based on lies”). Within two minutes, you know where Crow stands, and what kind of political record you’re about to get.

What you may not expect is some of Crow’s most incisive songwriting. Single “Shine Over Babylon” is a slow burner about the cost of freedom, and it reads like (forgive me, rock gods) something Bob Dylan might write. Even better – brilliant, in fact – is “Gasoline,” a dystopian anthem set to a ‘60s Rolling Stones backbeat. It tells a tale of “way back” in 2017, when the world’s people finally riot over the price of gas. The song is the undisputed highlight of the record.

There are lowlights, too – quite a few, actually. “Love is Free” is too simple to live, and “Out of Our Heads” is just plain bad, its salsa-disco rhythm backfiring in the worst way. “If we could only get out of our heads and into our hearts” is a lamer chorus than anything Kravitz has come up with. (The fact that it follows “Gasoline” isn’t in its favor, either.)

In the album’s second half, Crow abandons the protest songs for reveries on her failed romance with Lance Armstrong, and the worst of those – “Diamond Ring,” “Now That You’re Gone” – drag this album down. Returning producer Bill Bottrell has given this record an appealing rough edge, but he’s also segued all of the tracks, so it plays like one continuous thought. In that context, it’s harder to ignore the lousy tracks.

But like Kravitz’ album, Detours ends well. “Love is All There Is” takes a sweet George Harrison-style melody (and guitar sound) and weaves a fine mid-tempo pop song out of it. And the closer, “Lullaby for Wyatt,” could have been a sappy ode to Crow’s son, but instead, it’s a clear-eyed look at the joys and pains of parenting. (“I could shape your mind, but why waste my time, my dear, there’s so much more to know than I can show you…”) The last couple of tracks are so good that they wash away the worst bits of the album, and leave a good impression.

So yeah, Detours doesn’t totally suck. And it does have a strong sense of history wrapped up in its protest anthems and ‘70s-style rock songs. I suppose I’ll buy the next one too. Dammit.

But enough about bands that draw from influences before I was born. How about this – one of my bands, from when I was a kid, is back with a new record that tries to recapture their old sound. It’s nostalgic, but for a specific sound and time that few are trying to relive, and for that, I kind of love it. I remember this sound, and it trips very specific memories in me. I can’t say this is a very good album, but it’s my favorite of the three.

I’m talking about the Hooters, who are back after 15 years with Time Stand Still. And for me, it does just what the title promises.

Remember the Hooters? They made a few popular records in the ‘80s, had a few hits (“And We Danced,” “All You Zombies,” “Johnny B.”), disappeared under the weight of their most ambitious and least successful album (1989’s Zig Zag), and no one really missed them. Most people overlooked the unique qualities of the band – they play a million different instruments, from mandolins to zithers to pennywhistles to Hohner hooters (natch), and they can turn any mainstream-sounding rock tune into a folksy jig. Most just think of them as an ‘80s corporate rock band, and I can’t really figure that out. They’re competent and professional, of course, but they’re so much more creative than that.

While I liked Nervous Night and One Way Home, I loved Zig Zag. The acoustic stomp of “Deliver Me,” the lovely mandolin-and-synth lament “Heaven Laughs,” the on-the-nose protest “Give the Music Back,” the left-field half-reggae cover of “500 Miles,” I loved it all. This was unlike anything on the radio at the time, so it’s not a big surprise that it didn’t chart. Their subsequent stab at mainstream rock success, Out of Body, wasn’t very good and didn’t put them back in the spotlight, and I figured that was it. Like so many other bands I loved as a kid, they made their best record and faded out.

Hooters mainstays Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman did okay for themselves, though. Bazilian is probably still collecting checks for writing “One of Us,” Joan Osborne’s big 1995 hit, and Hyman is likely best known as the writer of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” Hyman’s also worked with artists as diverse as Ricky Martin and Dar Williams.

But now here’s Time Stand Still, an album which fulfills the Hooters’ mission better than any save Zig Zag. In the decade and a half between Hooters albums, their propensity to tear down genre walls has become a lot more accepted, and this album has some of the group’s best rock-folk-jig-reggae mixes yet. The clever thing is, if you’re not listening closely, it’s easy to dismiss this album as a bunch of middling rock songs. But just about every song has a Hooters-style twist to it.

Opener “I’m Alive” coasts on a melodica melody and a crunching guitar part, matched and exceeded by the title track, its mandolin riff anchoring and buoying it. The band does a cover of Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer,” and I was initially wary – I’ve heard that song way too many times to enjoy it. But they do a smashing job Hooters-ing it up, and the middle section, all accordion and recorder, is pretty great. So they accomplished the impossible by track three – they got me to like “The Boys of Summer.”

The rest of the record is good, but not great. “Until You Dare” (originally on Bazilian’s solo album The Optimist) is a bit of a cheesy ballad, pleasant as it is, and “Morning Buzz” gets by on its mandolin-fueled verses before crashing on the rocks at the chorus. But I love “Where the Wind May Blow,” the most compact mix of rock and folk here. In fact, this song is the quintessential Hooters track, showing off what they do better than anything else here.

The rest? The rest is very good, including the sea shanty “Catch of the Day,” the sweet “Ordinary Lives” and the lengthy “Free Again.” The bonus track, “White Jeans,” is a swell addition, a paean to bygone years set to a thumping beat. It’s only here that the Hooters betray any sense that they’re an old band looking back on their glory days, but they do it with a wink. I’m very glad to have this album, even if praising it damages my credibility in critical circles. There’s just something about this band that gets me every time I hear them.

Was music better back then? Was it better in the ‘60s and ‘70s? There’s a good argument to be made there, especially considering how awful most of the crap on the radio is these days. But unlike the ‘60s and ‘70s, the best stuff is under the radar these days. There are still bands pushing music forward while learning from its past. You just have to dig to find them. But it’s always worth it.

Next week, yet another gaze backwards into music history with the Feeling. Also coming up are new ones from Mike Doughty, Ray Davies, American Music Club, Richard Julian and the Black Crowes. It’s a good time to be alive.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Back when I was young enough to watch Sesame Street, they used to run segments designed to help kids learn words in Spanish. (They probably still do, but I haven’t seen the Street in more than a decade, and it was better before everyone could see Snuffy anyway.)

And one of those segments, which I vividly remember, was a crude animation of a guy crawling on his stomach through a vast, empty desert. You could tell it was hotter than hell for that guy because the animators had drawn in huge, unmistakable beads of sweat that were flying off of his head. (I could be wrong about this part – it’s been a long time. But that’s how I remember it.)

And as that guy inched along, no doubt burning the skin he scraped against the blistering sand, he repeated one word, over and over again:

“Agua! Agua!”

That, metaphorically speaking, is what January is normally like for me as an obsessive music fan. Absolutely nothing comes out in January, and ordinarily, nothing comes out in February, either. It’s a dry, deserted wasteland of post-Christmas apathy for the music biz. The mainstream stuff doesn’t bother with the early part of the year, since the Grammy cutoff is in the fall, and the indie stuff usually clears a path, though what they’re clearing it for is anyone’s guess. The field is left to high-profile rap releases and tumbleweeds.

Of course, that’s in most ordinary years, and 2007 is already looking like it won’t be an ordinary year. I can’t recall ever spending as much money in the record store in January as I did this year, and February kicked off with a nice couple of weeks as well. And astoundingly, just about everything I picked up has either lived up to my expectations, or wildly exceeded them.

Last week, for example, saw the new Bloc Party, called A Weekend in the City. I dropped the ball on this English band’s superb debut, Silent Alarm – by the time I caught on, it was too late, which is the story of my life. I’m just glad I did catch on, because Silent Alarm is extraordinary, a mix of angular, almost new-wave guitars with U2’s passion for sky-high choruses and depth of feeling.

City is even better, and what is it with these British bands who’ve never heard of the sophomore slump? Don’t they know they’re supposed to wait until the third album to truly find their sound and knock one out of the park? Bloc Party didn’t get that particular memo – City is bigger, grander, and more purposeful than the debut, pulling in a healthy Radiohead influence (but only from the good stuff, not the asinine post-OK Computer period), and matching it with more considered compositions.

Of course, the result is a somewhat quieter and more textured album, which some may find off-putting. It shimmers to life with “Song for Clay (Disappear Here),” which finds lead singer Kele Okereke sighing in a breathy falsetto. But don’t worry, those fast-paced, explosive drums kick in about a minute into it, supporting a jagged riff from hell.

It doesn’t last – the album quivers more than it shakes, especially in its more delicate second half. “Where is Home” is like a great lost Cure song, all synth beds, pounding drums and Okereke’s pleading voice. “Kreuzberg” is a masterpiece of chiming guitars and gorgeous vocals, taking on U2’s sense of drama and dynamics. And closer “SRXT” will break your heart with its fragile melancholy, leading to a powerful choir-drenched middle section, and then fluttering away on droplets of guitar and glockenspiel.

Through it all, Bloc Party have grown more experimental, more adventurous. There are some obvious Jonny Greenwood-isms all over this record, but there are just as many moments of pure inspiration, and it’s all so confident, taking your hand and guiding you from one end to the other. This is an excellent album, and it makes me all but certain that one day, Bloc Party will make a brilliant one.

Also taking a more experimental tack is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, even though they’re not as talented, and their second record is not quite the stunner Bloc Party’s is. If you know Clap Your Hands, you likely have heard the hype surrounding their unorthodox approach to the music biz – they achieved fame through the Internet first, and they steadfastly refuse to kowtow to label politics, preferring to release their work themselves.

But such DIY attitude hasn’t extended to their music this time. On the first record, they were scrappy and earthy, bleating out repetitive rock songs with little more than energy to keep them afloat. But on Some Loud Thunder, their sophomore effort, they enlisted Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann and grew some ambition. For the most part, it pays off, even though here and there the band can be heard drowning in the new sounds that surround them.

For one thing, Alec Ounsworth has a voice that’s built for chugging indie rock – imagine a less controlled David Byrne, slipping and sliding all over the notes he’s trying to hit. When that voice is supported by more expansive instrumentation, it sounds out of place. I should mention, though, that the exception to this rule is the great “Love Song No. 7,” a melancholy wonder that fits Ounsworth’s swooping sighs perfectly.

For another, sometimes the production just gets away from them. The title track, which unfortunately leads off the album, is mixed with all the levels in the red, and it’s a painful experience. The Dylan-esque “Mama Won’t You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning” almost collapses under its own weight by the end, and “Underwater (You and Me)” could have used one of the debut’s more stripped-down arrangements.

But Clap Your Hands win serious points for musical bravery – one thing you won’t hear on this album is the typical two-chord rock that fueled their debut. Like Bloc Party, they let the Radiohead influences out here, but they also whip out fucked-up acoustic blues (“Arm and Hammer”), drunken 6/8 balladry (“Yankee Go Home”) and, in “Satan Said Dance,” one of the campiest and most fun freak-outs in recent memory.

Come to think of it, I give the band infinite credit for sinking tons of money into this album, making a major-label-style sophomore record, and then keeping it for themselves, and self-releasing it. But I also think that in reaching for new musical styles and thicker production, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have just highlighted their shortcomings. Some Loud Thunder isn’t bad, and it is an unexpected direction for this band to go, but it doesn’t build on the strengths of the debut. In fact, it all but ignores them, and the record suffers from a lack of energy because of it.

The same criticism cannot be leveled at the Apples in Stereo, who find just the right blend of goofy rock and shiny production on their latest, New Magnetic Wonder. Of course, they’ve had some time to perfect it – Wonder is the band’s sixth full-length in 12 years, and perhaps the most successful piece of work Robert Schneider and company have released.

It’s essentially 14 songs and 10 interludes, and the interludes only make up about six minutes of this thing, but take them out and the album sounds incomplete. This record is super-fun, from its emulation of 1970s guitar rock to its disco-era vocal effects to the heavy helping of Electric Light Orchestra influence that’s slathered all over it, and even though at 52 minutes it’s the longest Apples album to date, it’s over before you know it.

The album kicks off with tone-setter “Can You Feel It,” a glorious explosion of Cars-like rhythms and Jeff Lynne-inspired vocal layering. It’s probably the most fun I’ve had listening to music this year so far, and will probably keep that crown until Fountains of Wayne’s Traffic and Weather comes out in April. The album doesn’t flag from there, splashing into rockers “Skyway” and “Energy” before ducking into Supertramp land with “Same Old Drag.”

Elsewhere, Schneider unveils his “non-Pythagorean” scale, which allows him to play notes between the 12 tones of the normal octave. But don’t worry, it won’t make your head hurt for long – the focus here is absolutely on ‘70s-inspired rock tunes that could have found their way to the airwaves in decades past. The album climaxes with “Beautiful Machine,” a four-part strings-and-horns indie-rock epic stretched over two tracks and nearly eight minutes, and even that remains light and fun for its whole running time.

The Apples in Stereo have never been about filling the world with angst, or delivering scathing indictments of the world around them. They’re about making fun, catchy tunes, and on New Magnetic Wonder, they’ve outdone themselves in that arena.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with opening a vein and bleeding all over your recording studio, which one-man-band Of Montreal does on its eighth album, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer. Of Montreal is (at least lately) just Kevin Barnes, and over time, his work has become more insular and electronic. But it has never failed to be melodic and catchy at the same time.

Hissing Fauna has been described as a concept piece, and it’s easy to see why – it opens with a series of singalong stompers, and you’d never know how bitter they all are unless you read the lyric sheet. In particular, “Gronlandic Edit” struts along on a funky bassline while Barnes takes on organized religion in a multi-layered (and fascinating) falsetto. The first six songs are danceable and hummable and full of sparking color.

That all changes with track seven, the 12-minute “The Past is a Grotesque Animal.” An endless rant slathered in synthesizers, it serves as the turning point of the record, and as a screeching veer into more venomous territory. The rest of the record follows suit, and grows angrier as it goes along – nothing after track six matches the bright bursts of the opening salvo. The stomping “She’s a Rejecter” contains this striking line: “There’s the girl that left me bitter, want to pay some other girl to just walk up to her and hit her…”

In all, Hissing Fauna is Barnes’ most emotionally naked album, taking his trademark juxtaposition of bouncy melodies and gloomy lyrics to new heights. Or new depths, depending on how you look at it. It’s a tough album to get through, but the closing track, the lighter-than-air “We Were Born the Mutants Again With Leafling,” makes struggling through the second half worth it. Barnes has crafted a challenging, powerful record here, and who knows how Of Montreal fans will take to it.

I also should mention that Hissing Fauna comes in one of my favorite packages of the year. I’m a fan of album art, and clever designs – it’s the kind of thing that sets real CDs apart from their context-free digital download counterparts. This album’s digipack unfolds like a flower, petal by petal, and the liner notes are on their own free-standing cardboard circle. The whole thing comes in a clear plastic sleeve that keeps all its pieces in place. It’s a great design.

But it’s not my favorite so far. That honor goes to Portland, Oregon’s Menomena, who drafted graphic novelist Craig Thompson (Blankets) to create the artwork for their second album, Friend and Foe.

I will not be able to describe this package to you – you simply have to see it. It involves a die-cut front cover card, through which you can see the art on the CD (or on the back panel, when the CD’s playing). There are eight different permutations of the cover, depending on how you fold it, and if you line the track numbers on the CD up with the holes in the cover, you get different designs for each song. There’s so much subtlety to the artwork that you could stare at it, shifting the CD and the cover over and over again, for hours and not catch everything.

With all that, you’d think the album would be crazy-experimental, but it’s not – Menomena make music using a looping program, taking turns writing and recording their parts over it while standing in a circle, but the results sound surprisingly like the work of a very talented rock band. Friend and Foe is more dense and subtle than the band’s debut, with pianos and sweet vocals and memorable melodies carrying the day.

Songs like “Boyscout’n” slither along on a creepy bed, with dynamic guitars and eruptive drums, and the variety of sound and structure belies the loop-based origins of these tunes. They get more spacey by the end, with closer “West” sounding like a transmission from a mental institution on Mars. Friend and Foe overall goes deeper, and as it trails off with an extended piano coda, it leaves you feeling more wistful than you may have expected.

If you’re looking for a follow-up to that delicate conclusion, can I suggest Swedish outfit Loney, Dear? I know you’ve traveled pretty far with me this week, but trust me when I tell you I’ve saved the best for last.

I first heard Loney, Dear in my wonderful record store, Kiss the Sky. The band’s fourth album, the repetitively titled Loney, Noir, arrived in promo form from Sub Pop Records, and the staff played it in the store. And I was swept away – this album is just fantastic.

Loney, Dear is the pseudonym of songwriter Emil Svanangen, and he constructs these glorious mini-epics in his home studio, overdubbing and overdubbing until he sounds like a cast of thousands. His songs are pretty delights, buoyed by strings and clarinets and millions of other little things, and topped by Svanangen’s high, clear voice. It’s feather-light stuff, but in the very best way – it fills the air around you and invites you to breathe it in.

Loney, Noir’s highlights are many, from the flutes-and-clarinets dance track “Hard Days 1, 2, 3, 4,” which makes tambourines and handclaps sound like magic, to the superb folksy glide of “Saturday Waits,” to the comparatively forlorn ballad “I Am the Odd One.” There’s nothing in these 33 minutes that hasn’t been lovingly crafted, and nothing that won’t make you fall in love with music again.

The album could have ended with the sad heartbeat of “The Meter Marks OK,” but thankfully, Svanangen decided to go with “And I Won’t Cause Anything at All,” a slowly building, pulsing, saxophone-inflected beauty of a track. It sounds for all the world like taillights drifting away in the distance, like a happy ending in progress. The song contains the slowest fade on the record, and you’ll find yourself grasping for every last tone and beat, hoping it doesn’t end.

Seriously, this is my discovery of the year thus far, a record of heartbreaking beauty. I hope Sub Pop finds it in them to re-release Svanangen’s first three albums, and I hope they’re as good as this one. And I hope he keeps them coming, because Loney, Noir is just a lovely little piece of work. I can recommend everything this week, especially the Bloc Party, Of Montreal and Apples in Stereo albums, but this one… this one, I’m going to treasure.

If this keeps up, 2007 will be an amazing year for music, and with new ones on the way from some of my favorite bands, including Marillion, Fountains of Wayne (hear the smashing first single “Someone to Love” here) and Wilco, I have nothing but hope for the next 10 months. Music, as the man said, is the best.

See you in line Tuesday morning.