There are only six complete Patrick Troughton Doctor Who stories in the BBC archives, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that one of them is The Mind Robber.

This is a story like no other in the original show’s 26-year run. Start with the format – it’s five episodes, instead of the usual four or six, a strange decision forced on it when the previous story, The Dominators, ran into script problems. The result is a hastily-written, tacked-on drug dream of a first episode that, oddly enough, actually sets the tone pretty well. Then The Mind Robber ran into its own production problems, and the decision was made to shrink each episode to 20 minutes, instead of the usual 25. So it’s a five-parter that plays like a four-parter, with a strange prelude stitched to the beginning.

But that’s nothing compared to the story itself. The Doctor and his companions (the ever-faithful Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot, science whiz from the future) find themselves outside of time and space, in a realm they soon learn is populated entirely by fictional characters. Like, they meet Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels, who only speaks lines from the novel. They wander around a forest of oddly-shaped trees, before they decide to climb one and discover that the trees are letters, and they’re on a printed page.

And it keeps getting weirder. Frazer Hines, who played Jamie, contracted chicken pox during one of the production weeks, and this is the kind of story were they found a way to replace him with another actor for one episode, and make it work. The cliffhanger of one of the episodes is Jamie and Zoe being pressed into a giant book. There’s a recurring pulp super-hero character called the Karkus, and while the Doctor can make mythical creatures like Medusa go away by reminding himself that they’re fictional, that trick doesn’t work on the Karkus because the Doctor’s never read his comic strips.

Everything about The Mind Robber is deliriously insane and imaginative. It’s probably the most original Doctor Who story I’ve seen, and just when you think they can’t pile any more crazy on top, there’s another mad moment (like a fight between Cyrano de Bergerac and Sir Lancelot) to add to the pile. I’ve seen all of the Troughton stories out on DVD at this point, and The Mind Robber is my favorite because it illustrates what I love about this show – you can do anything with it. The format is infinitely flexible, and the only limits are budget and imagination.

Case in point – the next story is an eight-part, slow-moving dissection of a subtle invasion of Earth by the Cybermen. It is completely different in tone and execution from The Mind Robber – it’s almost a different show entirely. But we’ll talk about The Invasion next week.

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I’m having a rough week, so this one’s gonna be quick. First, some things I’m excited about in the coming weeks:

The final Ministry album hits on September 18. It’s called The Last Sucker, and it completes Al Jourgensen’s “George Bush Sucks” trilogy (with Houses of the Mole and Rio Grande Blood). Will it actually be the last Ministry album? Don’t bet on it, but I’m always interested to see how artists fare when they choose to bow out on their own terms. Also that week, new ones from Thurston Moore, Mark Knopfler and Eddie Vedder.

September 25 is awesome, with new ones by PJ Harvey, Nellie McKay, the Weakerthans, Devandra Banhart, the Foo Fighters and the Flower Kings. Then October brings the Fiery Furnaces, the Autumns, the Good Life, Coheed and Cambria, Ween, R.E.M.’s first live album, and solo debuts by Serj Tankian of System of a Down and Dan Wilson of Semisonic. Oh, and on October 9, the first new record from Marc Cohn in nine years. Should be a good month.

And now, one review, and I’m going to bed.

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The age of the supergroup is long past.

There was a time, though, when bringing together artists from various successful bands was considered a good idea. Crosby, Stills and Nash. Cream. Blind Faith. Bad Company. Even, to some degree, Led Zeppelin. Few would argue that these bands were not worth the effort it took to bring their members together.

But then came Asia, and the Firm, and Damn Yankees. Even the much-vaunted Traveling Wilburys records were underwhelming, considering their pedigree. And now we have crap like Audioslave and Velvet Revolver further tarnishing the supergroup name. Forming these groups used to be like putting together a fantasy baseball team – if you had the best players, you’d likely get good results. I’m not sure why that was ever true to begin with, but it’s a laughable idea now.

Which is why the New Pornographers are such a treat. The octet has, in the past, bristled at the term “supergroup,” since before forming, the individual members weren’t well-known outside of Canada. But come on. We have superb singer-songwriter Carl “A.C.” Newman, songstress extraordinaire Neko Case, and Destroyer’s Dan Bejar in the same band. That’s a supergroup. And the fact that they’ve managed to make three increasingly excellent, democratically created records is kind of miraculous.

I suppose, then, that I shouldn’t be too surprised at the relative mediocrity of their fourth, Challengers. The New Porn magic couldn’t hold out forever. What is surprising, though, is just how quiet and subdued this album is. The songs are simple, the acoustic guitar is prominent throughout, and only infrequently does the record spring to life. The last New Porn album, 2005’s Twin Cinema, was just unstoppable – one amazing melody after another, played as if each one were the last the band would ever turn out. Challengers is kind of a lazy Sunday afternoon in comparison.

The album starts with four such snoozers, one after another, and while these songs have charms, it takes a few listens to uncover them. The title track, in particular, has a nice melody and some subtle banjo flavoring. (And a lyrical nod to the old Marvel comic Challengers of the Unknown.) But “Myriad Harbor” is just boring, a Velvet Underground tribute that goes nowhere very slowly. There’s nothing particularly bad about the other three, but stacked on top of one another right at the outset, they don’t exactly roll out the red carpet for the rest of the record.

Thankfully, it picks up from there. “All the Things that Go to Make Heaven and Earth” is the first tune with a pulse, and it’s a corker. I’m not sure why the usually reliable Newman didn’t have another eight of these tucked away for this session, but he didn’t. The only other rocker on Challengers is “Mutiny, I Promise You,” with its odd beat and killer chorus. After “Earth,” were back to blasé territory with the wooden “Failsafe,” although the slow epic “Unguided” is pretty successful. The record sputters to a close with two drifting, string-laden ballads, a soppy finish to a decent but disappointing release.

Neko Case is almost sidelined for the whole of this album – she contributes no songs, and her sterling voice only comes to the fore on a few tracks. Could this be a sign that she’s disconnecting from the group, following her own blossoming solo career? Possibly. History shows us that it’s rarely possible to keep a supergroup going for very long. Challengers shows us the cracks in the foundation for the first time, and while it’s still a pretty good record, future generations may look at it as the point where the New Pornographers began their decline.

Let’s hope not, because when these disparate egos work together, they’re spectacular. Challengers could be a bump in the road, or a sign saying “bridge out ahead,” and only their fifth album will tell us which one it is.

Next week, I have no idea.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I can’t imagine what it must have been like that first time.

Fans of Doctor Who in 1966 could be forgiven for thinking they knew what this show was about. For three years it had been the story of an elderly, time-traveling alien who dispatches grandfatherly advice and crotchety bluster in equal measure, flitting about the universe with his younger companions. So those fans sitting down to watch The Tenth Planet, the second story of the show’s fourth season, were likely completely unprepared for what they saw.

I’ve only seen about two minutes of The Tenth Planet, but they’re the minutes at the end, where the Doctor, played by William Hartnell, collapses on the floor of his Tardis. (That’s British for “time machine.”) There’s a brilliant white light, and then the Doctor… changes. Completely. When he wakes up, in the next story (The Power of the Daleks), he’s played by Patrick Troughton, a younger, impish man with a bowl-cut hairdo and an ever-present twinkle in his eye.

Remember, this was long before the internet came along, with its behind-the-scenes reports and spoilers – if you missed the news stories that reported Hartnell’s departure, the end of The Tenth Planet was a complete shock. I’d bet that some viewers watched Troughton’s first story, expecting that this was a plot device – the Daleks had somehow changed the Doctor into this new form, and by the end of the six episodes, he’d put things right. But then Troughton did a second story, and a third, and by that time, it was obvious this was a new Doctor.

The concept is called regeneration, and I still think it’s one of the most brilliant ideas for a television character I’ve ever heard. It was developed out of desperation – Hartnell was old, and his health and memory were failing him, and he needed to leave the show. But Doctor Who was then, as it is now, a massive draw for the BBC, and a merchandising cash cow. They couldn’t ax it, so they needed a new lead actor and a way to explain him. What they came up with is the idea that when the Doctor gets into a scrape he can’t get out of, he dies, and then every cell in his body is reborn – he looks and acts completely different, but has all the same memories.

This wacky idea could easily have fallen on its face, but one thing that must have helped sell it is the fact that Troughton is fantastic. He’s magnetic, an absolute joy to watch every moment he’s on screen. He plays the Doctor like some kind of mischievous clown, but there’s a wild intelligence behind those eyes, and Troughton uses his sometimes silly mannerisms as a mask for the Doctor’s true cunning. (The seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, adopted this technique as well.)

For most of his run, Troughton’s Doctor was accompanied by one of the best companions in the show’s long history, too – Jamie McCrimmon, the savviest 18th Century Scottish highlander you’ll ever see. He was played with wit and charm by Frazer Hines, who shared a connection with Troughton that few Doctor-companion match-ups had.

Here’s the tragic part for those of us who are just catching up with these early episodes. Troughton played the Doctor in 21 stories, from 1966 to 1969. Of those 21, only seven exist in their entirety. Most of Troughton’s run is missing – scattered episodes from 10 other stories exist, and four are gone entirely. Of the surviving seven, four are out on DVD, including one long thought lost – The Tomb of the Cybermen.

What the hell are the Cybermen, you ask? They’re basically the blueprint for the Borg, Star Trek’s inhuman assimilation machines. Cybermen are metal men with a chilling lack of emotion and personality, whose only goal is to conquer and make as many copies of themselves as they can. They, too, assimilate – they convert people into Cybermen, turning them into faceless drones, and they often say “resistance is useless” while they do it. Seriously, Trek pinched the whole concept.

The Tomb of the Cybermen is a locked-room story, taking place on the Cybermen home world. A group of archeologists have landed, looking for (you guessed it) a tomb full of dormant Cybermen, and two of the scientists have a secret plan to revive the metal monstrosities, hoping to use them as a private army. It’s terrifically silly, especially if you add in the Cybermats, little metal bug creatures that the Cybermen use to go places they can’t. Some of it is laugh-out-loud funny, but some of it is effectively creepy, too.

And then there’s Troughton, who is unquestionably in charge from the first scene. He manipulates events to his liking, using everyone except his companions, and stays one step ahead of the plot from minute one. There’s a great scene where he plays with over-the-top villain Klieg’s ego, spurring him on to greater and greater dreams of conquest, before stopping and saying, “Well, now I know you’re mad. I just had to be sure.”

The Tomb of the Cybermen is pulp adventure at its best, and I’m glad it survived all these years. The Restoration Team has worked magic again, cleaning up 40-year-old film to an amazing degree. The effects are silly, the Cybermen (and especially the Cybermats) are more laughable than scary, the whole story is just ridiculous, but man, it’s a lot of fun.

Next week, I’ll talk up The Mind Robber, a surreal and superb Troughton story. We now return you to your regularly scheduled music column.

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I’ve never understood the big deal about Rilo Kiley.

I don’t hate them – that would require a lot more effort and attention than I’m willing to give them. They have a scrappy indie-pop-folk sound that bores me more often than not, and despite having a very good vocalist in Jenny Lewis, the quartet often fails to come up with any hooks or melodies to make use of her. The band has become more and more shiny and poppy as they’ve gone along, but even their last one, More Adventurous, lay flat for most of its running time. Lewis’ solo excursion, a stripped-down country record called Rabbit Fur Coat, was somehow better and more memorable than anything she’d done with the band.

When I reviewed that record, I wondered whether Lewis would bring any of its naked and soulful qualities back to Kiley. Turns out, though, they’ve gone exactly the opposite direction – Rilo Kiley’s fourth album, Under the Blacklight, sounds nothing like anything they’ve done. It’s a glossy, big pop album, loaded with hooks and drum machines and sparkling keyboards. Some will cry sell-out, no doubt, and they may be right. But they’ll be missing out on the fun, because Under the Blacklight is the best record Rilo Kiley has made.

Maybe it’s just that it sounds so very different from anything I expected. Opener “Silver Lining” is the record’s highlight, skipping along in a ‘50s pop vein before taking off with a sweet chorus and an actual, honest-to-God hook. I’ve heard More Adventurous probably eight times, and I can barely remember any of it, but I was humming “Silver Lining” for hours after my first spin. Does that make it better? Probably not, but it certainly trips my particular wires more.

The record continues lobbing surprises at you. First single “The Moneymaker” is a dirty funk rumble that’s so left-field from Lewis and company that I almost didn’t notice that it has no chorus. “Close Call” has one, though, and it’s a winner. “Breakin’ Up” starts off like a Joy Electric song, all analog synth sounds and trippy beats, but morphs into a sort of first cousin to the Caridgans’ “Lovefool,” Lewis following up the forlorn pre-chorus (“Are we breakin’ up?”) with an effervescent pink bubble of a refrain (“It feels good to be free…”).

Blacklight is a tawdry record, most of its songs dealing with cheap and dingy sex. “Moneymaker” is obvious, but there’s the prostitute at the center of “Close Call,” the dangerous dancer that narrates “Smoke Detector,” and the teenage seductress at the heart of “15.” (The video for “Moneymaker” features real porn stars, too.) One gets the sense that these are characters, as much as the meeker souls that populated Lewis’ lyrics in the past, but Rilo Kiley has never been this sexy, this willing to get down and dirty, and it’s a surprising delight.

The album doesn’t sustain its high, unfortunately. The Dusty Springfield knockoff of “15” is kind of embarrassing, and “Dejalo” is a skipper for sure. “The Angels Hung Around” is the only thing here that sounds like Kiley of old, and as such, it stands out, but they close with “Give a Little Love,” a limp attempt at R&B that makes for a lousy comedown. But for the most part, Under the Blacklight is a swell surprise, a collection of well-written pop songs spit-shined and candy-coated. It’s just my kind of record, though it may turn off some of the band’s more indie-oriented fans.

But then, what’s life without a little risk? This album plays less like a calculated sell-out and more like a great experiment. It’s the Jenny Lewis Show – she’s at the wheel, and she’s taken the opportunity to write some of her most compact and memorable songs. Is it a bid for stardom? Maybe it is, but when I spin this album, I hear a bright, danceable pop confection that still retains its intelligence and earthiness. To me, there’s nothing strange about taking on new influences and trying something so very different, especially if the results are this much fun.

Rilo Kiley in my top 10 list? Now, that would be weird.

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Over the Rhine are no strangers to the list – their double-disc masterpiece Ohio made it there a few years ago. That massive work felt like the peak, the culmination of years of this husband-and-wife duo honing their woodsy pop sound, and since then, they’ve produced a stripped-back regrouping album (the superb Drunkard’s Prayer) and a couple of stopgaps – two live records, a Christmas album, and a best-of collection. And none of these releases answered the big question: what’s next?

Well, here it is, proof that Rilo Kiley isn’t the only band exploring new caverns of sound. The Trumpet Child, Over the Rhine’s eighth full-lengther, finds them slipping backwards in time, and coming out fresh and reinvigorated. OTR has always been a traditionalist act, and every time they’ve run aground in their long career, they’ve returned back to their roots – stark acoustic folk and blues, with an unmistakable earnestness and a genuine belief in beauty. On Trumpet, they find their footing in 1920s cabaret-style jazz, spinning earthy tunes the likes of which we’ve never heard from them.

Opener “I Don’t Want to Waste Your Time” starts with a saxophone quartet, and morphs into a piano-led invocation, a torch song invitation to spend the next 42 minutes in Over the Rhine’s company. “I won’t pray this prayer with you unless we both kneel down,” Karin Bergquist sings, and then spends the next batch of songs in the church of the jazz crooners. “Trouble” is a knockout, an acoustic shuffle with light piano sprinklings from Linford Detweiler. “Nothing is Innocent” picks up a light samba beat, and the title track is a devastating gospel ballad with some glorious trumpet and saxophone work.

Bergquist and Detweiler haven’t completely given over to their nightclub spotlight muse. “Entertaining Thoughts” is a pretty standard Over the Rhine song, poppy and driving, while “Let’s Spend the Day in Bed” is a mini-epic, its electric piano groove sliding effortlessly into an extended guitars-and-drums blowout. But they always dip back into their Wayback Machine – “Desperate for Love” follows “Let’s Spend the Day,” and it’s a lilting showtune with a great clarinet solo. And while the title character of “Don’t Wait for Tom” may not be Mr. Waits, the music is all him, echoing his delightful perversion of old-time jazz. Plus, we get to hear Detweiler’s Waits impression, which is pretty damn good.

At the core of this album, as always, is Bergquist, and let me just take a moment to rhapsodize about this woman’s voice. There’s no question she can sing, but just listen to any random three tracks of The Trumpet Child – she can really sing. She does vixen on “Trouble” with surprising ease, rolls out her playful side on “I’m On a Roll,” and just two songs later, her vocal on “The Trumpet Child” will simply slay you. She takes on many different roles during this album, and plays them all with different personalities, singing the hell out of every song here. Bergquist has always been great, but this album fully reveals her as one of the finest singers we have.

If you want to think of The Trumpet Child as a flat-out masterpiece, it’s probably best to consider the closer, “If a Song Could be President,” as a bonus track. The one flaw on an otherwise flawless album, this slipshod country ballad would have sounded out of place even if Detweiler hadn’t saddled it with hokey, hippie lyrics of the worst kind. “We’d vote for a melody, pass it around on an MP3, all our best foreign policy would be built on harmony,” Bergquist sings before suggesting that Neil Young should be a Senator despite his Canadian birth, and Emmylou Harris should be an ambassador because “world leaders would listen to her.” I’m not sure what they were thinking, but this song is an embarrassing blotch on an album that could have been perfect.

But you can’t win them all, and that’s why God made the skip button. For 10 superb songs, Over the Rhine rewrote their own rulebook, and the album they came up with is one of their very best. Every Over the Rhine album is worth it just for Karin Bergquist’s amazing, angelic voice, and this one even more so, but it’s the restless musical spirit here, the search through the back alleys of history to find something pure and timeless in these grooves, that makes this one special. I hope they keep traveling this path, because it’s a fruitful one.

Over the Rhine on my top 10 list? That wouldn’t be weird at all.

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Next week, well, it could be anything. We’ve got new ones from Jeremy Enigk, Minus the Bear, the New Pornographers, Liars, Collective Soul and Lyle Lovett, to name a few. I’ll just pick a couple and let you know what I think.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’ve said this before, but one of the big problems with immersion in a relatively obscure art form is that when something tragic happens to one of your heroes, no one knows who you’re talking about. That’s partially why I sometimes pass over some of the more famous deaths that occur, content in the knowledge that they’ll be eulogized elsewhere.

But when someone like Mike Wieringo passes on, I kind of feel like it’s my duty to say something. Wieringo was a comic book artist, and a damn good one. He toiled on big-name super-hero comics, drawing Spider-Man and the Flash, but the work I’ll always remember him for is Tellos, a brilliant little book about talking animal pirates and one imaginative little boy, created with Todd DeZago. He had a style that was instantly recognizable – I’d buy comics just because they were Mike Wieringo works.

Wieringo died of an apparent heart attack on Sunday. He was 44. Fittingly, Tellos will be released next week in a complete, gorgeous-looking hardcover, and I can’t wait to have it on my shelf. Rest in peace, Mike, and thanks for all the great work.

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So let’s do Doctor Who up front this week. I’m through the William Hartnell era, or at least the ones that have been released on DVD, and I’m neck-deep in the Patrick Troughton era now. But let’s catch up a little bit first.

William Hartnell played the Doctor for three seasons, from 1963 to 1966. There are 29 stories that bear his name, not counting his turn in The Three Doctors in 1972. Of those, seven are completely lost, save for some clips, and another five exist only partially. Of the remaining 17, only six are out on DVD at the moment, so those are the six I’ve watched.

The final two are from the show’s second season, during which the ratings were spectacular and the production team were becoming more ambitious, despite their miniscule budgets. Hence The Dalek Invasion of Earth, the 10th story, which finds the crew filming those rolling pepper shakers all over London, stepping outside the studio for the first time in the show’s history. And it’s mostly a success, if you’re able to look beyond the early ‘60s camera techniques and special effects.

My biggest problem with the Daleks has always been that they’re not scary. Their first story, just called The Daleks, actually went some distance towards rectifying that – most of those seven episodes were drenched in spooky, alien dread, and they worked pretty well. But take the Daleks out into the streets of London, and they’re a lot less scary, especially as they trundle wobblingly over bridges and sidewalks. In this story, the Doctor and his companions have landed on Earth far into the future, after the Daleks have successfully conquered it, and the first thing you need to do to enjoy these episodes is suspend your disbelief that a rolling sex toy with no opposable thumbs could enslave humanity.

But if you can get beyond that, it’s a fun little romp. The location filming gives the story room to breathe, and even though the six-episode length is a little long for the plot, it’s an enjoyable ride all the way through. Kudos to the Restoration Team, who painstakingly transferred the black-and-white archival film of this story to digital perfection, and I’d highly recommend making use of the optional GCI effects they’ve whipped up for certain scenes. The pie-plate-on-a-string flying saucer is just too laughable…

Fancy new effects could not have saved The Web Planet, the 13th Doctor Who story, sadly. This is a case of ambitions far outstripping cash and technical ability, a clusterfuck of incredibly funny proportions. Let me set the scene for you – The Web Planet takes place on Vortis, a world where the only inhabitants are insect creatures. Big ant-things called the Zarbi, dancing moths called the Menoptera, and grunting grubs called the Optera. That’s three races, needing three kinds of costumes.

The Zarbi, then, are giant fiberglass ants with human legs sticking out of the back. It becomes clear early on that the actors in these ant suits can’t really see, so they bump into things and each other all the time. The Menoptera have plastic wings, striped jumpers and funny antennae, and they literally dance about and wave their arms as if they’re mimes. But they’re not – they speak in a sing-song voice that really grates. And the Optera are dressed in felt, and look amazingly stupid. And they talk in a strange language that’s never explained.

Six episodes of this. The Zarbi beeping and blipping, the Menoptera flitting here and there, and the Optera shouting out nonsense. There’s a plot, about something called the Animus taking control of Vortis and making the Zarbi their slaves, but after an hour or so, you won’t care, and you’ll still have 90 minutes to go…

The only thing that makes The Web Planet watchable is the so-awful-it’s-funny nature of the whole thing. Hartnell can’t get through a scene without screwing up his lines – there’s a moment in the first episode where he’s obviously blanked out, and the other actors just stare at him for what seems like a full minute. Director Richard Martin smeared Vaseline on the lenses of the cameras to play up the alien atmosphere of Vortis, but the result just looks like poor, smudgy film quality and crappy lighting.

And there’s this hysterical bit in the third episode where a giant fiberglass ant runs smack into the camera. What’s even funnier is the inevitability of it – you’re watching this thing lumber towards the camera for about eight seconds, and it’s obvious what’s about to happen the whole time. “If he keeps going, he’s going to run right into… ah, he did.” Really, the only way to get through all six episodes is by laughing, and even then, the final couple will test your will to live.

So that’s the first big strikeout, and even The Web Planet is fun in a way – they shot these things live, with almost no money, and I watch this one wondering just what made them think they could pull it off. Anyway, that’s it for Hartnell – he was replaced by Patrick Troughton in 1966, and I’ll talk about the concept of regeneration and the oldest surviving Troughton story, The Tomb of the Cybermen, next time.

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What’s that? You want to read about music? Okay, then. I have a lot of catching up to do, and some superb albums have hit the stores (and the ‘net) in recent weeks. Here’s a brief look at seven of them, all of which are worth your money.

First up is the Alarm, continuing their Counter Attack Collective series with the third of seven EPs, Fightback. Mike Peters and company continue their homage to old punk singles with this record, which actually looks like a record – black plastic, grooved front, cardboard LP sleeve, the whole bit. And like Three Sevens Clash, the first EP, Fightback has an intro, an extended outro, a couple of kickass punk tunes, and some fine surprises. These EPs are obviously crafted as individual 20-minute pieces, cohesive and inseparable.

One criticism often levied at the Alarm is that all of their songs sound the same, blurring into one long anthem. This is, to put it bluntly, a lazy and inaccurate dismissal, and Fightback proves it. It opens with “The Fall Out,” a mostly instrumental intro with shades of U2, then slams into the title track, a pure punk burst of positive energy. “What About the Man on the Street” is classic modern-day Alarm, propulsive and melodic and just plain awesome.

But then come the curve balls. “War Cry” is a Clash-style reggae tune, and even though I normally hate those, this one makes me sing along. It’s the weakest thing here, but it’s followed by the strongest – “Love Is My Enemy” may be the finest song Peters has written since the original Alarm broke up in 1992. It’s a minor-key stunner, starting off with a web of clean electric guitars and bursting into a great chorus that’s pure Alarm. It reminds me of “Strength” more than anything. The EP ends with “Life Support System,” almost a dance remix of the last five tracks.

There are another four of these EPs coming, one a month, with a full-length album scheduled for a month later, in January 2008. Peters says that none of these EP songs will appear on the album, which is just amazing – if these are the castoffs, then Counter Attack should be nothing short of incredible. The next EP, Watching Me Watching You Watching Them Watching Us, should be out in about three weeks. When this is all together, it could stand as the best thing Mike Peters has ever done. Check it out here.

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I owe Jim Worthen for getting me into Mae.

Worthen is a bigwig at Washington-based label Tooth and Nail, and he sent me Mae’s terrific debut, Destination Beautiful, when it came out. The label was understandably proud of that record, and even more so of Mae’s sophomore effort, The Everglow. Here is some of the catchiest modern rock you’ll find anywhere, with a genuine skill behind it – the melodies rarely go where you’d expect, and the instrumentation is surprisingly complex at times.

Mae has moved onward and upward to Capitol Records for their third album, Singularity, and I’m not sure how Worthen feels about that. (I haven’t asked him.) But I can tell you that it’s Capitol’s gain, because Singularity is great, another leap forward for the band. They’ve retained their focus on tight songwriting, and they’ve added a bit of prog-rock – the album is colored with synthesizers of all kinds, and some of the songs (“Sometimes I Can’t Make It Alone,” “Rocket”) edge into King’s X territory. But amazingly, they can still pass for a swell modern rock band, albeit a more talented one than most of their peers, and their sound should appeal to melody addicts of all ages.

Singularity’s opening trilogy is a rocket ride. “Brink of Disaster” was the first song I heard from this project, its looping synth line and dynamic chorus sticking with me for days afterwards, and “Crazy 8s” is just as good. What you think is the chorus is in fact just the pre-chorus – most bands would have stopped there, but Mae kicks their tune into orbit with great melodies and harmonies. And the title is the only thing about “Sometimes I Can’t Make It Alone” that’s reminiscent of U2 – the song is a powerhouse of stop-time riffs and soaring vocals.

I could keep going – “Just Let Go” is sweetly straightforward, “Sic Semper Tyrannis” has one of the record’s coolest choruses (“All hands on deck, we’re going down…”), and the final few tracks are beautiful – but suffice it to say that if you liked The Everglow, Singularity is several steps above even that album. And if you’re not yet a fan, and you’re wondering where all the good modern rock bands are these days, well, buy Singularity. It’s enough to shame the members of Fall Out Boy into retirement. Or at least, I can hope.

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I was worried that we’d never see a second Eisley album.

Their 2005 debut, Room Noises, was terrific, even though I never got around to reviewing it here. They’re a family band from Texas – three sisters, their brother, and their cousin, all named not Eisley but DuPree. The name actually is a Star Wars reference – they were originally Moss Eisley, after the Mos Eisley Spaceport in Episode IV, but legal worries forced the change when they signed to Warner Bros.

For those of you who tuned out at Star Wars, don’t worry. Eisley isn’t even close to a geek-rock band. They play deep, atmospheric pop with crystal-clear harmonies, and while their stuff isn’t always memorable, it is always pretty. Room Noises had some lovely songs on it, reminiscent of the more ethereal side of Sixpence None the Richer, and their sophomore effort, Combinations, is no different.

It sounds like it will be at first, though. “Many Funerals” is surprisingly loud in places, with a killer riff in the middle, and some hurt and angry lyrics. (“How could you have left us here, you had friends, had us… goodbye…”) Combinations, all told, is not a happy or peaceful album, but from there, the music takes on more of the expected ambient pop sound. “I Could Be There For You” is lovely, as is the closer, “If You’re Wondering,” and the band even kicks up some low-key dust on “Ten Cent Blues.”

And again, Eisley’s work is not always memorable, but it is always well made, and very pretty. The production, by a multitude of folks, positively shimmers, and the Sisters DuPree weave a thick, gossamer vocal web atop it. If this is the band’s sophomore slump, then it should be smooth sailing from here, because Combinations is swell.

* * * * *

Shifting gears entirely, we have Upfront and Down Low, the third album from Teddy Thompson.

Thompson is the son of Richard and Linda Thompson, two of the brightest lights in the folk-rock sky, so he labors under charges of nepotism from the start. But over two good-to-great albums, Thompson has proven himself as a songwriter – his second, Separate Ways, is a gem. Still, the last thing you’d expect from an up-and-comer still struggling to get his own songwriting vision out there is a covers album, and especially a covers album made up of nothing but old-time country classics.

Fellow Brit Elvis Costello did this very thing with Almost Blue in 1981, and it nearly derailed his whole career. Thompson is in little danger on that score, however, because as much as I like Almost Blue, Upfront and Down Low is better. Thompson sticks to slower, weepier numbers, like Dolly Parton’s “My Blue Tears,” and his band, including some of Nashville’s finest (and his dad), does a sterling job with them. The star, though, is Thompson’s voice, deep and husky and strong. As well as he does with his own pop-rock material, these country standards sound like the songs he was born to sing.

He even adds one of his own, the sweet “Down Low,” and it fits right in. This is a hazy, tears-in-your-beer kind of record – Thompson only kicks up the dirt once or twice, most notably on the closer, Boudleaux Bryant’s takedown of country cliches “Let’s Think About Living.” But as good as it all is, the highlight, as far as I’m concerned, is a bonus track – Thompson’s acoustic read of the Everly Brothers’ lovely “Don’t Ask Me to Be Friends.” I’ve always loved this song, a rare jewel tucked away in the lower reaches of the Brothers’ catalog, and Thompson does an amazing job with it.

Upfront and Down Low is a strange choice for a budding songwriter – at least, on paper. But press play on this disc, and it becomes clear quickly why Thompson did it. This collection sounds like coming home for Thompson, and whether he chooses to do another set of originals next or a box set of these grand old songs, I’ll be happy.

* * * * *

It’s been six years since Suzanne Vega’s last album. It’s also been 20 years since the general public gave a rat’s ass whether Suzanne Vega has a new album – her one fluke of a hit, “Luka,” took over the charts in 1987. I’ve said this before, too, but the general public has been missing out, since Vega is one of the most consistently rewarding songwriters of her kind.

Her new one, Beauty and Crime, is a mere 34 minutes long. But what minutes they are. Vega writes deceptively simple songs that hide labyrinths of complexity beneath them, and stretches themes to album length. This record is a love letter to New York City, a series of snapshots through time, sketched out in a multitude of styles. The base is Vega’s traditional folk-rock, of course, with her precise, half-spoken vocals atop it, but here she explores samba beats, small combo jazz, and Hollywood-sized vistas.

Here is “Frank and Ava,” a cautionary tale about Sinatra and Gardner and their volatile relationship, revolving around the line “It’s not enough to be in love.” Here is “Pornographer’s Dream,” a bouncy yet deep tune about Bettie Page and other out-of-reach women. Here is “As You Are Now,” the sweetest love song since “I Will Follow You Into the Dark.” And here is a brief connected suite, titled “Bound” and “Unbound,” about marriage and separation – these are the heart of the album, and the most lavish productions.

But they are not the soul. That’s in the closer, “Anniversary,” a lovely acoustic statement of newfound purpose. “Put away the draft of all your eulogies, clear the way for all your private memories,” Vega sings, before exhorting, “Make the time for all your possibilities, they live on every street.” This is a line about New York, and about life, and it caps an album about memory and loss beautifully. It’s been six years since the last Suzanne Vega album, and as Beauty and Crime can attest, that’s way too long to be without a songwriter of her caliber. This is one of the finest records of the year.

* * * * *

In contrast, Julian Cope seems to be on a serious roll – no six-year delay for him. We’re lucky if we get six months between new releases.

You’d think that wouldn’t give Cope time to fully express his mad genius, and in a way, you’d be right. His two 2005 albums, Citizen Cain’d and Dark Orgasm, were both raw and ragged affairs, victims of their low budgets. Cope also used both albums as a way of bringing the proto-punk sound of his side band, Brain Donor, into his solo work, with decent results. But Cope had yet to make a latter-day album that was the equal of his best stuff from before the turn of the century, including Jehovahkill and Autogeddon.

But hold on. He’s finally got his pagan ass in gear, and made the greatest Julian Cope album in ages with You Gotta Problem With Me. Another two-disc affair from his own label, Head Heritage, Problem returns Cope to the trippy, psychedelic sound of his best work. He’s still as insane as Syd Barrett was, but he’s kept hold of his finely developed sense of melody this time, turning out some of his most bizarre yet singable songs. It’s still a low-budget concoction, and if you’re looking for easy listening that doesn’t require a lot of effort on your part, I wouldn’t recommend this. But if you’re a Cope fan, you should buy this right the hell now.

The album opens with its oddest piece, the nine-minute, nearly drumless “Doctor Know,” which rumbles through its many movements with the grace of a wounded elephant. But the core melody is excellent, and the overall trippiness of the song sends it over. Two tracks later, Cope is trying on his sarcastic side with “Soon to Forget Ya,” a monologue about cavalier men with a chorus like a great lost Kinks song. And the title track is one of the few raging rockers, but it’s drowned in odd electronic noises, all playing in the wrong key.

Here’s the thing with Julian Cope, too – while listening to him, I’m often reminded of the old saying, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That adage springs to mind when I’m faced with Cope’s simplistic criticism of Arab culture in “They Gotta Different Way of Doing Things,” although he fares better on “Can’t Get You Out of My Country,” sung from the point of view of an orphan on the streets of Baghdad. Cope has a unique perspective on the world, one I’m not in sync with most of the time, though it is interesting to peer through a window into his mind.

The second disc contains the most successful stuff, including the breathtaking “Woden,” a menacing acoustic tale of old gods falling before a vengeful and jealous Christianity. “Vampire State Building” is my favorite song title of the year so far, I think, and the tune itself is a creepy takedown of the new American empire. And if Problem opens with its most inscrutable song, it ends with its most straightforward – “Shame Shame Shame” is further proof that a protest song is always more effective if you can sing along with it.

You Gotta Problem With Me is Julian Cope’s best album of the new century so far, and if he’s faltering or slowing down with age, he’s certainly not showing it. Check out his work here.

* * * * *

And I think I’ve saved the best for last again.

You ever hear a song and immediately know you will follow its authors until either you or they die? That’s how it was with me last week, when I first heard Okkervil River’s “Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe.” It’s the leadoff track on their new album, The Stage Names, and is easily one of the best songs of 2007.

Let me try to describe it for you. It starts off with a Cars-like guitar part played on an acoustic, as leader Will Sheff sidles in with his commanding voice. “It’s just a bad movie, where there’s no crying,” he sings, and then he slips into the main melody, and it’s kind of awesome. The snare drum enters sparingly, the first sign that the song is about to get grander, and then without warning, Sheff shoots up an octave, the piano kicks in, and the song is in the stratosphere. And it never comes down.

It’s the best opening to any record this year, and The Stage Names mostly lives up to it. Okkervil River hails from Texas, and they play a scrappy version of down-home folk-rock, with that edge of grandeur that some folks call pretension. I just call it knowing what you want, and Sheff and company are in control of every second of this album. “Movie” throws down a gauntlet that the rollicking “Unless It’s Kicks” can’t quite pick up, but “A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene” is terrific, with its memorable horn section.

And then there is “Savannah Smiles,” one of the prettiest songs I’ve heard yet this year. (Yes, I know, too many superlatives, but it’s true.) The sad tale of a father reading his daughter’s diary and seeing for the first time how difficult her life is, “Savannah Smiles” will tear you apart. It’s almost entirely acoustic guitars and xylophones, and it’s haunting.

The album never quite hits that height again, but it remains excellent until the end, especially the semi-sweet “A Girl in Port” and the wonderful “Title Track.” The record ends with “John Allyn Smith Sails,” which segues into a rocking version of “Sloop John B,” a nice surprise for Beach Boys fans. And when I finished The Stage Names the first time, I felt stupid for not having heard Okkervil River before. This is pure American music, traditional-minded and earthy, yet it sounds fresh and new, and incredibly gorgeous. The Stage Names just gets better each time I hear it, and I’m already buying the older ones, reveling in this great band I’ve finally discovered.

You can hear all of The Stage Names here.

* * * * *

Next week, we get new ones by Over the Rhine, the New Pornographers, Rilo Kiley, Jeremy Enigk and Minus the Bear, all of which are getting nice advance notices. And I’ve just pre-ordered the new Fish album, 13th Star, which many are saying is the big Scot’s best record yet. The year is looking up! Thanks for trawling through this very long column.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

When I tell people that I spent four years chronicling the music scene in Portland, Maine in the late ‘90s, I always get the same question: “Portland, Maine has a music scene?”

And I always give the same answer: “Hell yeah it does.”

I started as an intern at Face Magazine, Portland’s premier music mag, and worked my way up to editor-in-chief. When I began working there in 1996, I was living in my car and using the showers at the school I’d graduated from only two months before. I ended my tenure as the highest-paid employee on staff, and it still wasn’t very much – there isn’t a lot of money in free music publications, honestly. But in those four years, I found myself tapped into a rich, diverse musical environment. Whatever style of music you’re into, someone in Portland does it, and does it very, very well.

Life at Face was never boring. One week I would be talking to a jazz saxophonist who had composed a suite based on fractal mathematics, the next I would be interviewing some up-and-coming metal band fresh out of high school. And the next I’d be talking to one of my idols over the phone for one of our regular cover stories on world-famous acts visiting the area. And the week after that, I’d be laughing hysterically as a local disco-pop band conducted their interview with me in character, as aliens from the planet Funktar.

The best part was, I didn’t have to pay to see live music while I was there. It was my job, and I got into every show for free. Some were a chore to sit through, but once in a while, I would get to see a band that any city would be proud to call its own. Face being what it was, I became much more entrenched in the rock and metal scenes than any of the others, so I got to meet and see bands like Colepitz and Twitchboy and Gouds Thumb that were making innovative, terrific, heavy-as-shit music, and pulling it off on stage.

But if Portland had a superstar band, it was Rustic Overtones. I know, it’s an unlikely name for a popular act, but while I was there, everyone in Portland knew Rustic. Funny story – they started out as a three-piece while I was in high school, and during my freshman year of college, they decided to put together their soon-to-be-trademark horn section. So they auditioned a trumpet player who lived across the hall from me in my freshman dorm. He didn’t work out, but he did give me Rustic’s pleasant first album, Smile, on cassette. I had no idea that the band would soon be everywhere.

By the time I’d graduated college, Rustic had recorded and released their signature album, Long Division. Here was the Rustic sound – heavy, often funky rock with a full horn section, led by a singer (Dave Gutter) with a superficial resemblance to Dave Matthews, but a much more soulful edge. The songs were long, massive affairs that remained danceable even at their most thunderous. And the album contained “Simple Song,” and you couldn’t get away from that damn catchy tune in 1996.

By that time, I was working at Face, and I got to help chronicle the band’s ascension. They released the excellent, diverse Rooms by the Hour in 1997, and then signed with Arista – when that news hit, Rustic were heroes. They’d signed a major label deal and gotten out of Portland. Alas, it wasn’t to be – they recorded their major label album, but parted ways with Arista before it could come out. The less-than-stellar Viva Nueva (which ironically means “new life”) was released on Tommy Boy in 2001, but it was too little, too late. The Rustic boys moved on to other things – most notably, Gutter and Jon Roods’ project Paranoid Social Club.

That story’s been repeated time and time again in the Portland scene. An extraordinary band gets close, tantalizingly close, to national recognition, and then it all falls apart. I’m sure it’s the same everywhere, but I got to see it up close as the public face of Face. Rustic’s fall was sad and surprising, because they have everything one would think you’d need to make it big.

And maybe they’ll get another shot. After five years of working separately, the seven members of Rustic Overtones have reunited, and they have a new album, called Light at the End. None of them are saying whether this is a permanent deal, and the album title certainly lends credence to the theory that it’s a temporary, final outing, but I’m overjoyed to report that if this is the last Rustic record, it’s a much better way to go out than Viva Nueva.

Light at the End contains both old and new material – five new recordings with local legend Jon Wyman, and four tracks from the Viva Nueva sessions, produced by Tony Visconti. The five new ones are the best – I found Viva Nueva overbaked and underdeveloped, but Wyman’s light touch makes the new tunes seem like classics. “Rock Like War” is all over Portland radio, as it should be – it’s a stomper of a song, horns blazing.

But it’s “Troublesome” that takes the prize – it’s awesome, just a tight, melodic pop song. The title track is terrific, and the folksy political rant “Letter to the President” is a nice surprise – Gutter really nails this one. And I don’t want to give the impression that the Visconti tracks are no good. They’re just thicker and more plodding. “Oxygen” is a flurry of drums and horns accompanied by a string section, the best of the Visconti tracks, but “Carsick” has a great percussive riff, and the extra production works well on the dreamy “Carnival.” And the new “Hardest Way Possible,” a song that’s now appeared on three Rustic albums, is good as well.

Overall, though, this album is a treat, and it’s great to hear the mighty Rustic Overtones flexing its muscles again. They were the biggest, and they were among the best, and Light at the End is a good reminder of why. If this is the last Rustic album, then at least we got one more than I expected we would. And if this is the start of the second phase of their career, then count me in for the long haul.

Check out Rustic here. As far as I know, you can only get Light at the End from Maine’s own Bull Moose Music.

* * * * *

While Rustic were just starting out when I arrived in Maine, Twisted Roots had been together for some time already. They released their first full-length, Turn to Stone, in 1993, at the height of the grunge revolution. By the time I got to interviewing them, on the occasion of their superb 1999 album Body in Trunk, Brick on the Gas, they were already the elder statesmen of Portland rock – I called the article “Still Here, Dammit!,” a statement with a double meaning – the band was still together, but still in Portland, when they deserved much wider recognition.

I lost track of Twisted Roots after leaving Maine, so I was heartened to see, on a recent trip up north, that they’re still together, and still releasing albums. T-Roots remains Pete Giordano, Adam Powers, Mark Lennon and Sonny Robinson, their lineup for the last 10 years, and they’re still making superb, heavy music.

From the band name and their album titles, you might get the idea that Twisted Roots is a metal band, and that’s not quite accurate – they’re more of a heavy rock band with a strong blues influence, and it’s clear even from their most recent stuff that they came up during the Seattle craze. Their focus is on energy and on Giordano’s clear, powerful voice. Still, I can imagine the surprise your standard metal fan may feel if they pick up T-Roots’ new disc, 12 Skies, Fire and the Black, just based on its title and foreboding cover art, and when they press play, they get the acoustic opening of “New Monday.”

Things certainly get heavier from there, but they don’t get less melodic – these nine songs are the finest to ever bear the band’s name, and even though the album is only 27 minutes long, it’s the best thing they’ve done. The songs are compact – most don’t even break the three-minute mark, and they don’t have to. “New Monday” is bluesy, but “Dig” is a monster with a pummeling riff, and “Fire and the Black” is a four-minute epic with enough ideas for five separate songs.

I remember being disappointed with Twisted Roots live, because they just crank everything up to ear-bleeding levels and assault the audience. Their albums, including this new one, have many shades, and the production by the band and Lance Vardis is crystal clear. You can hear every nuance of the band’s twin-guitar arrangement on “Refugee of Tomorrow,” and even the more explosive tracks, like the oddly-spelled closer “See Through Mee,” are beautifully recorded.

But it’s the songs that win the day here, and the skilled performances of the four band members, who by this point must know each other’s playing styles inside and out. There are benefits to sticking together for more than 15 years, and Twisted Roots are reaping them. 12 Skies is a great little disc, and I’m thrilled to see that a band I admired when I was little more than a kid can still rock with the best of them.

Twisted Roots can be found here. Again, go to Bull Moose to get the record.

* * * * *

It’s nice to see the old bands are still together, or reuniting, but what about the new ones? I’m less connected to the Portland scene than I once was, so I don’t know what new high school or college band is tearing up the clubs now, but I can tell you about a new band made up of local legends, one that deserves all the success they’ll undoubtedly get.

The band is Lost on Liftoff. My friend Shane Kinney is the drummer – he’s one of the few people I’ve stayed in touch with since leaving the Great White North, and a nicer and funnier guy you’re not likely to meet. He’s also a great rock drummer. Kinney has joined forces here with Walt Craven, a guy who has tasted national success twice now, with Gouds Thumb and 6gig. Craven is a gifted songwriter, a good guitarist and a compelling singer.

Last year, Lost on Liftoff released a four-song EP that hinted at their sound – melodic and tuneful, guitar-driven, almost power pop. Craven has been mining this territory for a while, and he’s very good at it, but he’s never been better than he is on LOL’s full-length debut, Mixtape Blackouts. And I have to think it’s the musicians he’s playing with, including Nicholas Lamberto on guitar and Dan Walsh on bass, that has pushed him to these heights.

Every song here features a soaring chorus, a thick and powerful arrangement, and a focus on strong songwriting. I had commented to Kinney some time ago that the songs here maintain the high standard set on the EP, but after a few more listens, I think they’ve surpassed it. “Husk” remains a favorite for this melody addict, and I find myself singing along with the chorus every time. “Greens and Yellows” has some superb stop-time work, Kinney just nailing it, and “You Idiot” and “Sunburnt” simply rock. The band reprises “Naked and Wasted” and “40 Miles” from their EP, and they fit in nicely.

But the finest of the new songs is the most atypical – “I Can Hear You in Stereo” shimmers to life slowly, and rises and falls dynamically throughout its five minutes, Craven’s vocals at their most plaintive. “For all we know, it’s impossible to know for sure if we will make it through another day,” he sings, and then leaves the final minute-plus up to the band. They turn out a beautiful coda, and if LOL had chosen this song to end the record, I wouldn’t have argued with their decision. (Actual closer “Still Remember” is a rocker with a great concluding riff, so I can’t complain.)

And then there is track 12, “Don’t Change.” I listened to this album straight through the first time without realizing that this song is an INXS cover, so completely do Lost on Liftoff own it. This is what a cover should be – the band takes the core of the song, rearranges it to suit their style, and slots it right into their catalog, sounding for all the world like an original. It’s just great.

My only complaints about Mixtape Blackouts are a guitar-heavy mix that sometimes drowns out the bass and drums, and a consistency of style that gets slightly wearying after 13 tracks. But Craven, Kinney and company have produced a terrific debut here, hopefully the first of many records to come, and they offer further proof that the Portland, Maine scene is alive and well.

Check out Lost on Liftoff here. They’re practically giving the album away at, yes, Bull Moose.

* * * * *

Next week, I’m aiming for seven reviews, including new ones from Mae, Eisley, Teddy Thompson, Suzanne Vega and the great Julian Cope. And maybe the return of the weekly Doctor Who report.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So let’s get this out of the way first: I preordered the new Swirling Eddies album, The Midget, The Speck and the Molecule, on May 19, 2004.

I know this because I kept the receipt, though I did have to dig it out and check it once the album finally arrived this week. On May 19, 2004, I paid my $20, and waited, having no idea at the time that the record would take three years and two months to complete and ship. It’s the longest I’ve ever waited for an album I’d already paid for, and I admit there were times when I thought this record would never materialize.

Honestly, there are only a few artists I’d do this for, and the Eddies are among them. I don’t know quite how to begin explaining why. I suppose I should begin by explaining who the Swirling Eddies are, and how they came to be.

Once upon a time, there was an amazing spiritual rock band called Daniel Amos, or DA for short. They were led by a mad genius songwriter named Terry Taylor, a guy who has never been content with just one style, or just one identity. In addition to DA, Taylor writes the lion’s share of the songs for the Lost Dogs, kind of a Traveling Wilburys of spiritual pop music. He’s also been known to go by the name Dr. Edward Daniel Taylor when he’s feeling surly.

Anyway, in the 1980s, Daniel Amos released a string of brilliant but low-selling albums, including their Alarma Chronicles, a series of four interlinking records telling a cohesive story. As an encore, they released Darn Floor – Big Bite in 1987, an absolute stunner of an album that still stands as the best of their early work, despite the weird title. Fans praise it now, but in ’87, it was rejected completely by a music industry that didn’t quite grasp it. Plus, it sold terribly.

Upset with the reception his finest set of songs had received, Taylor decided on a bizarre left turn – he’d round up the members of DA and form a new band with them, one that could serve as an outlet for Taylor’s more sarcastic side. This band was the Swirling Eddies, and they released their first album, Let’s Spin, in 1988. The musicians all took on fake names – Taylor called himself Camarillo Eddy, for instance – and the album was a full-on sneer party. But it was nothing when compared with their 1989 opus Outdoor Elvis, which practically oozed anger.

They threw a curve in 1994 with Zoom Daddy, a slinky, strange, long record that, despite being released under the Eddies moniker, included everyone’s real names, and was a musical and lyrical tour de force for Taylor. Even now, 13 years later, it’s still one of his best records, and he has more than 30 to his name. Of course, the Eddies followed that up with Sacred Cows, a free-range slaughter of some of the crappiest Christian music ever recorded, including Amy Grant’s “Baby Baby” and Stryper’s “Sing Along Song.”

And then Taylor put the Eddies to bed. He did his cowboy thing with the Lost Dogs, made a phenomenal new Daniel Amos album in 2001, and seemed to settle into a late-career groove. It was clear that the Eddies were of their time, a manifestation of a younger man’s anger and disappointment. Does the world still need Camarillo Eddy? More to the point, does Terry Taylor still need Camarillo Eddy?

So yeah, even before the three-year wait (and even before we knew what it was called), The Midget, the Speck and the Molecule had a lot to live up to. Admittedly, 90 percent of the population has never heard of the Eddies, or of Terry Taylor, DA, the Lost Dogs, or any of the bands in this fertile little pocket of spiritual pop. But for those of us who know the story, and who’ve been following along, this is an Event. No, this is an EVENT.

I said before that I’ve never waited three years for an album I’d already purchased, and even though I remained patient throughout that time, The Midget had to be worth not only the 11 years since the last Eddies record, but also the small eternity that’s passed since Taylor started putting it together. Sing along if you know this song:

It was worth all that and more.

The Midget, the Speck and the Molecule is extraordinary, easily one of the finest albums of 2007. Far from the comedic knockoff that part of me was dreading, it’s a major work from the mind of Taylor, still one of the sharpest songwriters around when he’s on his game. The album brings together many of Taylor’s styles, and works in a few more he’s never tried. And yet, it is still absolutely a Swirling Eddies album, quirky and funny and a genuine treat to listen to.

The music is terrific, some of it taking from DA and some from the Zoom Daddy sound, but it’s the lyrics that make this record. Taylor is in full glory here, writing about lecherous lotharios, lonely homeless men, despairing old couples, doubt, regret, humility, and even on a couple of occasions, his own band. This is top form Terry Taylor, every line a knockout, and every song inviting you to pick it apart and find the hidden meanings.

The album opens gently with “It All Depends,” and it’s immediately clear that there have been a few changes to the Eddies lineup. Derri Daugherty and Steve Hindalong of the Choir are all over this thing, Daugherty caressing the sweeter numbers with his trademark shimmering guitar, and Hindalong playing exotic percussion as only he can. Fellow Lost Dog Mike Roe is on here too, joining original Eddies Taylor, Jerry Chamberlain and bass god Tim Chandler. (The three best bass players in pop music, as far as I’m concerned, are Paul McCartney, Colin Moulding of XTC, and Tim Chandler.)

And so “It All Depends” whispers to life, a sweet acoustic guitar floating over delicate bongos and a cloud of ambient electrics. It’s a song about perspective – “Faith to move a mountain or a zealot’s wishful thinking, a connoisseur of the finest wines or just another drunkard drinking, one more dirty whistle blower or a conscience coming clean, I suppose it all depends how you look at these things…” But as it goes along, it gets louder and deeper, Taylor inviting you to share his perspective, whatever your own. Perhaps my favorite line in this song: “Some say death is a doornail, some say death is a door…”

The title track comes next, and it’s also surprisingly gentle, strange and beautiful. Taylor uses the title’s imagery to dramatize regret, I think – the old hitchhiker becomes a midget, then a speck, then a molecule in your rear view mirror as you drive away, the image of someone you failed to help haunting the rest of your journey. “Madonna Inn” is, of course, about the famous hotel in California, where each room is a different experience. This one sounds the most like Zoom Daddy, all slithering bass and low, half-spoken vocals. It’s spooky and sexy and terrific.

The album to this point has set such a mood that it’s almost a shame when middling rocker “Giants in the Land” ruins it. But Taylor saves “Giants” by making it perhaps the cleverest song about his own band he’s ever written: “There were giants in the land in those ancient days, there were giants in the land, now they’re in their graves, indifference killed ‘em, it buried the band, all they wanted was a tour and a rental van…” The final verse is almost a message to Taylor’s small group of devoted fans: “In those ancient days, there were giants in the land, you wanna raise them up, you gotta give them a hand…”

Naturally, of course, we did by pre-ordering this album three years ago, which makes the raucous “Medley of Our Hit” all the more inexplicable. This song is possibly the most insular thing I’ve ever seen an artist of Taylor’s stature do – it directly references the message board flap over the pre-orders, and takes people to task for whining about it. Leaving aside whether it’s a good idea for a guy with a few thousand fans to start calling them out by name, the song is a hoot, and it makes a perfect point – this preorder thing is not important, not worth complaining about. It’s just another “piece of hit.”

Or, you know, it all depends on how you look at these things, because some people were genuinely upset over the long wait, and a humble “we’re sorry,” either in song or in the packaging, would have gone a long way. (The entire thanks list: “The Swirling Eddies would like to extend their deepest love and utmost respect to us, the Swirling Eddies.”) Still, this song is exactly the way Camarillo Eddy would react to the controversy, and the lyrics are deceptively self-deprecating: “Take the crank, give it a yank, ‘cause we’re on empty, so fill up our tank with good and plenty, milk and honey and money in the bank…”

I could name and describe each song, since they’re all highlights, but I won’t. (Okay, I do have to bring up “My Cardboard Box,” the tale of a lovestruck homeless guy. This is the funniest thing here, and Taylor’s Camarillo voice – lower and more guttural than his natural one – is perfect for it.) The back half of the album is flawless, playing like a terrific DA album, particularly “Tremolo” and the great “A Humble Man Rises.” (The full line is, “A humble man rises to a new low.”) It’s in the second half that the amps are cranked and the real rock begins, Chandler going to town on his four-string while Taylor screams and flails like a man half his age.

What a great little joke, then, to end this album brimming with ideas with a song about running out of them. “This is the Title” describes its own creation as it goes along: “Can only come up with a few lines, I just sang the lines, these are the lines…” (Providence, Rhode Island band Exhibit A had a similar tune called “This is Where You Put the Title.”) It’s a sweet and funny finish, and the whole thing concludes with a reprise of the title track, Daugherty’s lovely waves of guitar the last thing you hear.

And then you press play again.

I’d have waited twice as long for an album this good. The Midget, the Speck and the Molecule is even better than I’d hoped, a genuine triumph for Terry Taylor, and the best thing he’s contributed to since the last Daniel Amos album in 2001. It’s a prickly, thoughtful, funny, inspiring little disc, one that definitely lives up to the Eddies legacy. But don’t worry – it’s enjoyable even if you’ve never heard of the Eddies or Terry Taylor before.

Get on over to www.danielamos.com and check it out. And while you’re there, try the Lost Dogs’ new one, The Lost Cabin and the Mystery Trees. And then work backwards and pick up everything Taylor and his fellow Dogs have ever done, because it’s all worth hearing.

* * * * *

I’ve gone on and on about the Eddies, so no Doctor Who update this week. Suffice it to say that I’ve seen a couple more William Hartnell episodes, including the nigh-unwatchable The Web Planet, and I’m itching to talk about them.

Next week, some missives from Maine, including new ones from Rustic Overtones, Twisted Roots, and my friends in Lost on Liftoff.

See you in line Tuesday morning.