Keeping it short this week. I had a great vacation, thanks for asking. Hung out with old friends, ate good food, and did essentially nothing at all. Found six hours to watch all of The Trial of a Time Lord in a row (thanks, Mike), and took in the director’s cut of Watchmen. (It’s excellent, of course.) The week went by in a flash, but I’m glad I did it – I feel refreshed and alive right now.

Still, I’m pushing the deadline for this column, trying to get it done in between all the work and home duties I’ve neglected for a week. Hence, keeping it short and simple. But then, that kind of works with this week’s theme. Here, see for yourself.

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I have an uneasy relationship with simplicity.

The simpler something is, the less likely I am to enjoy it. I love Margo Timmins’ voice, but I have to force myself to sit through albums by her band, the Cowboy Junkies. I get why people like the blues, but I can’t listen to it – it’s all basically the same to me, despite the oceans of feeling behind it. I’ve grown to appreciate simplicity as I get older, but my first reaction is still vague disappointment whenever I hear the same three or four chords being used again and again.

This quirk comes almost exclusively from my teenage metalhead years, when everything had to be bigger, faster, louder and more complex than everything else. When Metallica embraced the blues on their self-titled album from 1991, it was like shoving a dagger in my heart. Where was the band that crafted …And Justice for All, assembling each technically amazing piece one at a time, emerging with a tight, progressive metal masterpiece? Why were they repeating boogie riffs over and over?

Of course, like all boys obsessed with finding The Best Players on Earth, I drifted into prog rock, while many my age were discovering punk. Here, God bless ‘em, were those 30-minute symphonies I’d been craving, songs which continually moved and blossomed, never repeating, always exploring. Here was music to study, to pore over, to test the skills of all but the best. The longer and more complex the songs were, the happier I seemed to be.

But over time, I discovered that most prog rock is, relatively speaking, emotionally empty. I still appreciated what bands like Dream Theater and Spock’s Beard were doing, but I’d heard Tori Amos, and the Choir, and others capable of bringing out emotional responses with two or three chords. And sometimes, two or three notes. It’s still a struggle for me – I usually respond to music cerebrally before I respond emotionally, so I’m quite often deconstructing the chord structure of a song before I even realize that I like it. I don’t know why this is, but I work with it.

The bluesy simplicity of his music kept me away from Jack White for a long time. Too long, honestly – I rejected the White Stripes as garage-rock throwaways after hearing “Fell in Love With a Girl,” and it took until 2005’s Get Behind Me Satan to bring me into the fold. Yes, the music is simplistic, and minimalist, and doesn’t stand up to the same scrutiny as Close to the Edge might. But fuck all that, because it rocks, and that’s all that matters.

Now I follow Jack White wherever he goes. I picked up the two Raconteurs albums just to hear him in a new setting, paired with a lush pop songwriter like Brendan Benson. I bought Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose to hear how White’s style would translate behind the boards – he produced the album, co-writing a few songs while he was at it. And now, I’ve bought Horehound, the debut album from White’s new band, the Dead Weather.

This is exactly the kind of album I probably wouldn’t have listened to five years ago, but I love it now. It’s pure blues-rock, swampy and dirty and simple and mean. The Dead Weather is a collective – White on drums, Raconteur Jack Lawrence on bass, Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age on guitar, and Alison Mosshart of the Kills on vocals. But unlike other so-called supergroups, this one forges its own identity immediately. And it’s sleazy-sexy-awesome.

First, there’s the sound of this thing. The whole album sounds like it just crawled out of the muck – there isn’t a sharp, cleanly-produced moment here. Horehound is a lumbering beast of a record, lurching forward on White’s thunderous drums and Lawrence’s thick (THICK) bass lines. Mosshart’s vocals are half-buried in the swamp, but her husky vamp works extremely well with this material.

What material, you ask? Horehound is full to the brim with minor-key blues-rock, and not the kind you might have heard on an Aerosmith record. This is deep, crawling blues, shambling, but mighty enough to clock you one when you’re not paying attention. Opener “60 Feet Tall” is deceptive, starting things on a slow and slinky note, but Fertita’s guitars burst out of nowhere, dumping chunky, viscous noise all over everything. Second track “Hang You From the Heavens” rips through its 3:37 on a relentless Jack White drum beat, Mosshart barking out all the things she wants to do to you: “I’d like to grab you by the hair, and sell you off to the devil…”

White steps out from behind the drum kit to sing a few numbers with Mosshart – “I Cut Like a Buffalo,” for instance, and the totally kickass “Bone House.” Single “Treat Me Like Your Mother” is a full-on vicious stomp with a mantra-like coda from White, instrumental “3 Birds” interrupts its blues for a piano-organ interlude of sorts, and the band crashes their way through a nigh-unrecognizable take on Bob Dylan’s “New Pony.” The album ends as it began, with a slower shimmy entitled “Will There Be Enough Water.” Over six terrific minutes, the band rocks their baby to sleep, White and Mosshart sharing vocal duties. It’s a beautiful thing.

So yeah, Horehound is basically just a dark blues-rock album, one that might have passed me by a few years ago. It’s not passing me by now. I’m not sure what it is, but the Dead Weather may already be my favorite of Jack White’s three bands – it has the icky thump kickass of the White Stripes, filled out with some dirty, dirty bass, and a dingy basement vibe that seeps swampwater and attitude. If these songs were more complex, this wouldn’t work. White and his band know exactly the kind of blues they are going for here, and they do it wonderfully.

The Dead Weather’s a good example, but no band illustrates my struggle with simplicity quite like the Fiery Furnaces.

When they started out, siblings Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger played a relatively straightforward variation on the blues. Their 2003 debut album Gallowsbird’s Bark was full of piano-boogie tunes and uncomplicated rock, and of course, I hated it at the time. But 2004’s follow-up, Blueberry Boat, knocked me on my ear – imagine Yes as a garage band, and you have the idea. 10-minute songs, multi-part suites, progressive rock monsters, all performed with a junky indie verve that worked. I’d never heard anything quite like it.

Of course, fans of the first album hated it. And with subsequent releases (seven in all, not counting Matthew Friedberger’s two-CD solo album), the band pushed things farther. Rehearsing My Choir was a song cycle about the siblings’ grandmother, narrated by the woman herself, and as impenetrable an album as you’re likely to find. Both Bitter Tea and Widow City played with lengthy song structures, changing things up every 10 seconds – it was impossible music, played astonishingly well.

But a funny thing happened – Fiery Furnaces albums started to sound tiresome to me. By the time they got to the two-hour live collage Remember, which spliced together bits of songs from all stages of their career in a relentless mess, I was pretty much done. By being as complex as possible, the Furnaces had started to bore me.

But now here’s I’m Going Away, the most straight-ahead record the Friedbergers have made since their debut. And I can only describe it as refreshing. This is not Gallowsbird’s Bark all over again – for one thing, this new album is slower and more sedate. But it does strip back all of the fussy arrangements and nearly-random structures of the past half-dozen albums, sticking with drums, guitar, bass, piano and Eleanor’s voice. Remarkably, I’m Going Away sounds more like a live album than their so-called live album did – I can imagine all of these songs pounded out as you hear them, one take, in the studio.

If nothing else, this album proves Matthew Friedberger can write a terrific pop song when he feels like it. The opening title track is a bluesy rave-up, with swell ride cymbal work from longtime drummer Robert D’Amico, and first single “Charmaine Champagne” makes judicious use of the term “folked up.” But it’s the slower ones that catch my ear. “Drive to Dallas” is a timeless-sounding ballad, the kind you’d hear in a smoky nightclub. “I’m not gonna drive to Dallas with blurry eyes again,” Eleanor sings, and it’s one of the most direct moments on a Furnaces album in recent memory.

The best of these songs come at album’s end. “Keep Me In the Dark” has moments of funk, but grafts a memorable chorus to them, and makes room for a bizarre keyboard solo from Matthew. “Lost at Sea” is a simple delight, one of Matthew’s finest melodies performed as minimally as possible, the focus on Eleanor’s voice. It’s one of only two that breaks the five-minute mark, with closer “Take Me Round Again” being the other. That song could have fit nicely on Gallowsbird’s, its rhythm and blues reminiscent of the Furnaces’ more traditionally-minded past.

And perhaps its future. If there’s anything I’ve learned about the Furnaces, it’s that they will never do what’s expected. I certainly didn’t expect a simple pop record from them at this stage in their career, but I’m Going Away is just about perfect, a palate-cleanser for whatever’s next. This is a band known for its meandering side paths, but sometimes, you’re just in the mood to walk straight on down the road. I expect I will keep on struggling with simplicity, but when it’s this good, it’s barely a struggle at all.

Next week, a double dose of Jason Martin. Write me a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

By the time you read this, I’ll be on my first mid-year vacation since 2007.

I tried last year to save up all my vacation days, and take half the month of December off. Those three weeks at the end of the year were terrific, but the 11 months leading up to them nearly killed me. So I’m taking some summer vacation time this year, visiting old friends and basically doing nothing. Hooray for me!

So I’m writing this on Sunday the 12th, long before its scheduled posting date of Wednesday the 22nd. I’m sure some truly significant things in the world of music will happen between now and then, and trust me, I’ll touch on them when I get back. I don’t even know what they are yet, but I’m sure something will happen. Also, I will, in fact, review Horehound, the debut from Jack White’s new band The Dead Weather. But you’ll have to wait a bit. I’m relaxing with a glass of limeade and a good book. At least, I expect that’s what I’ll be doing while you’re reading this.

I didn’t want to leave you in the lurch for an entire week, though, so here are two quick reviews of new releases, and a look ahead to the fall lineup. Some good stuff coming our way soon. Here’s hoping I can afford it all!

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I missed Cornerstone again this year.

When I was a teenager, just getting into the spiritual pop corner of the music world, Cornerstone was this mythical thing I would never see. Once a year, these bands I was growing to love – the Choir, the 77s, Daniel Amos, the Prayer Chain – would get together for a week-long festival, playing all these songs I adored, and no one else knew. But visiting Cornerstone was an unattainable goal – it takes place in a faraway land called Bushnell, Illinois, which may as well have been one of the rings of Saturn when I was 16.

The irony, of course, is that I live here now. I’m only a couple of hours from Bushnell, and yet, I keep missing Cornerstone, year after year. Granted, it’s not the same show it was years ago. I was lucky enough to attend in 2002, one of the last great years there for the spiritual pop music I love – I saw Daniel Amos, the Choir, the Violet Burning, the full 77s rock show, acoustic sets by Terry Taylor and Mike Roe, and basically every spiritual pop musician I’ve wanted to catch in concert since I was a teenager.

And I discovered new ones. 2002 brought me Ester Drang, and a return trip in 2005 netted me Sufjan Stevens and Mutemath. Pretty good batting average, I’d say.

Oh yes, and I bought CDs. Lots of them. My first trip to C-Stone, I must have spent more than $100. New things from the Lost Dogs, the 77s, Mike Roe, Daniel Amos (the When Everyone Wore Hats book set, which I love), and several others. These bands had firmly established their internet sales presence by this time, but before that, I imagine you could only find these discs by going to Cornerstone. My first trip there was like my first few years going to music stores – I had no idea what I’d find, and I came away with dozens of little treasures.

Of course, nowadays these bands don’t have to rely on festivals to move CDs. The internet has become the saving grace of many of these musicians, and some of them, like the great Bill Mallonee, have turned to selling nothing but downloads online. The upside is, even if I miss the festival, I don’t have to miss out on new records from some of my favorites. And this year brought me two of them, from Michael Roe and the Violet Burning.

Full disclosure: I wrote the press bio for Mike Roe’s new album, We All Gonna Face the Rising Sun. That means I’ve had the thing (in mp3 form) for about a month now, turning it over in my mind. And I’m glad I’ve had the extra time, because this is a deeply weird record. But it’s also a pretty amazing one, a full-speed left turn for one of my favorite singers and guitar players.

If you enjoyed Holy Ghost Building, last year’s old-time gospel and blues album from Roe’s band the Seventy Sevens, you’re halfway there on Rising Sun. This is another album of dust-covered spirituals, all but one old enough to be in the public domain. But while the Sevens updated and re-arranged their versions of these venerated tunes, Roe has taken a much more difficult tack – he’s done his very best to emulate the sound and feeling of the original records.

That’s harder than it might appear at first. I know from talking to him that Roe dug through a couple hundred old vinyl sides to come up with the 11 songs that made the final cut, and the main criteria was emotional response. The songs had to move him. Once he’d picked the songs, he had to figure out just what it was that inspired him about them, and try to replicate that on his own versions. In some cases, that meant imitating the voices – Charlie Patton’s, for example, or the Bailes Brothers’. In some cases, that meant capturing the ancient, musty production techniques used to record the originals. In every case, it meant getting inside the lyrics and feeling them.

Even more than on Holy Ghost Building, Roe’s selections here are songs of conviction and redemption, and they may strike some as preachy. These are straightforward gospel numbers, with titles like “Come to the Saviour” and “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down,” and they speak of turning from and returning to Jesus in plain language, without metaphor. But these are songs that, as Roe said, scare him near to death, and they are messages he needs to hear.

Because Roe’s work has always been about redemption, about finding that light you’ve lost. Here, he digs deep to find the source of those themes, and in the context of his body of work, this album plays like a letter to himself instead of a sermon. Whatever voice he’s using, the connecting thread of this album is pure Mike Roe. And in many ways, this is the most intimate and revealing album of his 30-year career.

Musically, it is absolutely fascinating. Only the second track, “Dry Bones,” sounds like familiar Mike Roe. It’s acoustic, with some subtle banjo touches and some absolutely beautiful guitar atmospheres. Roe’s voice is in top form on this track, which finds him sounding the most like himself. If you were hoping for a sequel to 2002’s extraordinary Say Your Prayers, well, this song comes closest.

But it’s the least familiar ones that intrigue and amaze me here. Check out Patton’s “I’m Goin’ Home,” a back porch blues that finds Roe emulating Patton’s throaty shout, something he said took boatloads of courage. I can hear why. The impression is amazing, and the vocals, guitars and production all work to bring a deep sense of feeling to the whole thing. It’s contrasted with “Come to the Saviour,” a folksy waltz that sounds like an outtake from Wednesday Morning 3 A.M., complete with a dead-on Art Garfunkel in the high duet vocals.

But even the backwoods gospel of most of these songs will not prepare you for the title track. Originally performed by the Delta Big Four, it’s an a cappella spiritual that sounds for all the world like it was recorded around a single microphone in the middle of a field 80 years ago. The voices are all Roe, harmonizing with himself – and, just for the right touch of authenticity, not-quite-harmonizing in places. It’s mixed as if you’re peering at it from five miles away, through an ocean of hiss. If anything here fulfills the mission statement of catching the feeling of these old gospel records, this song does it. (There’s another a cappella piece, “I Know My Time Ain’t Long,” but this one is produced crisply and clearly. It’s still amazing, though.)

The album ends with its oddest piece, “We Need More Rattlesnakes.” It’s a story, the kind people might have told around a campfire once upon a time, about a man praying for God to smite his town into repentance. Roe delivers it in such a “read along in your book as you listen” voice that I half-expected to hear bell sounds to let me know it was time to turn the page. This song made me wish, just for a minute, that Roe had not decided to be so faithful with his renditions – a Mike Roe song would have ended with the narrator asking for one more snake for himself.

But that’s the only time I felt I wasn’t listening to Mike Roe doing what he does. This may initially sound unlike any Roe album you’ve ever heard, but dig down deep and you’ll hear the connections – this is an album about being broken, about needing something bigger, and while Roe has always sung about that in the spiritual sense, here he complements that by tapping into a surprisingly rich musical vein. The man himself describes Rising Sun as a detour, but it is far more than that. It is a loving tribute to music that frightens and moves him, a tour of the origins of the music he’s made for 30 years.

It’s a strange album, and it probably shouldn’t be your first Mike Roe. But for longtime devotees like me, this one’s a revelation, and a tremendous listen. Get your copy here.

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The other new release is from the Violet Burning, and this one has an even stronger link to Cornerstone: it’s a live album documenting the band’s 2007 concert on the Gallery Stage.

The Violet Burning is a band, but the mastermind is Michael Pritzl, one of the most emotional performers you will ever see. I first caught Pritzl at Cornerstone in 2002, doing a swell acoustic set, and I was hooked – I’d bought the albums for years, but never quite connected with the songs until then. And when I finally got to see the full TVB rock show, well, I think “bowled over” might be the appropriate term. Live, the band is a maelstrom of atmosphere and feeling, and at its center is Pritzl, singing his heart out. The songs are personal and prayerful, but the music is massive, expansive, enveloping.

This new live document is called Sting Like Bees and Sing, a typically Pritzl title taken from a line in his song “Fabulous, Like You.” At the time, TVB’s latest studio opus Drop-Dead had just been released, an album that found Pritzl bringing back the gothic undertones and the dark moods of earlier Violet records. Some of Pritzl’s best and most rocking songs are on Drop-Dead, and the live album kicks off with a string of them. “Do You Love Me” crashes out of the gate full-throttle, but I’m most impressed with the Cure-like “More,” all clean guitar webs and shivery tones.

The album is broken into suites, in a way – after “Fabulous,” we get four songs from the 1996 self-titled album, and the huge expanses of sound start to work their way in. Live favorite “Low” is a monster here, and “Underwater” sounds larger than the stage can contain. The record ends with two tracks from 1998’s Demonstrates Plastic and Elastic, concluding with the gorgeous “Elaste,” here stretching to 11 minutes. It builds and builds, Pritzl repeating “let your love cover me” as the guitars explode beneath him, finally ending in a miasma of distortion and feedback.

It’s always good to hear the Violet Burning, particularly in a setting like this – Pritzl and company truly shine on stage. Sting Like Bees and Sing is not quite a new album, but it fills the empty spaces nicely. Buy it here.

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And now, a quick look forward at some things I’m anticipating. I’ve been saying that the next few months look amazing, and here’s why:

July will wrap up next week with a new album by Neon Horse, the pseudo-supergroup that includes Jason Martin of Starflyer 59 and Mark Salomon of Stavesacre. Expect sleazy rock goodness. Starflyer also has a two-disc set called Ghosts of the Past coming out, comprising everything from their Ghosts of the Future vinyl box set and various EP tracks. And I hear a rumor that Phish might have reunion album Joy ready to go by the end of the month, but that’s looking less and less likely.

August will see new things from Modest Mouse, Robert Pollard, Brendan Benson, Arctic Monkeys, Collective Soul, David Bazan, Imogen Heap, Cheap Trick (playing Sgt. Pepper live), Patrick Wolf and Hank Williams III’s death metal band Assjack. We’ll also get the new Vertical Horizon, Burning the Days, and I mention it because there’s an unlikely guest star – Rush drummer Neal Peart wrote lyrics and hit the skins on this record. That’s a weird match, and I must hear it.

We’ll also see the new one from art-rockers Mew, and this is the actual title (deep breath): No More Stories Are Told Today, I’m Sorry, They Washed Away, No More Stories, the World is Gray, I’m Tired, Let’s Wash Away. It’s not quite Fiona Apple long, but it’s a mouthful. Mount Eerie will release Wind’s Poem, Richard Thompson will put out a box set chronicling his entire career, and oh yeah, Mutemath will give us their sophomore album Armistice on August 18.

But September is where the action is. Start with the big one: the entire Beatles catalog gets the remaster treatment on the 9th. They’ll be available separately, or in a big, beautiful box for $200 or so. The Black Crowes have two albums coming: Before the Frost will hit stores on CD, while Until the Freeze will be available for download. Plus we’ll get new things from Yo La Tengo, Megadeth, Muse, Living Colour, Bruce Hornsby, Mark Knopfler, Hope Sandoval, former Cockteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie, Pearl Jam, Islands, Porcupine Tree, Fleet Foxes drummer J. Tillman, Alice in Chains (with the new singer), The Swell Season (also known as the stars of Once, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova), and Bon Iver main man Justin Vernon’s new project, Volcano Choir.

Sheesh, huh? But that’s not all. We’ll also see box sets from Big Star and Genesis, the latter a collection of live material from their entire career. Plus remasters from the Stone Roses, Sunny Day Real Estate and (amazingly) My Bloody Valentine. And September will bring us a new project from Sufjan Stevens. I’ll be broke, but I’ll be happy.

We won’t see the new Beastie Boys, Hot Sauce Committee Part 1, however – the band has postponed it while Adam Yauch, also known as MCA, battles cancer of the salivary gland. It’s operable, I’m told, and I wish him a speedy recovery. For those going to Lollapalooza, like me, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have agreed to take the B-Boys’ headlining spot.

That should do it for me this week. I’ll be back in the saddle next week with… something. Probably the Dead Weather and the Fiery Furnaces. Time will tell. If you’ll excuse me now, I have a vacation to attend to. Be good to each other while I’m gone.

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I have a complex relationship with Wilco.

I’m not sure how much of it is me, and how much is them. I don’t give star ratings on my reviews, but if I did, Wilco’s catalog would have seen the full range – 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot would have received five stars, and 2004’s A Ghost is Born would have been slapped with one, or none. Depending on how my hypothetical rating system might work, of course. I have loved them, I have loathed them, I have been indifferent towards them, I have held them up as shining examples of greatness.

If I think about it, only someone like Tori Amos provokes similar reactions in me. And I’m not sure why this ragtag group of tradition-minded rockers brings out such emotions. It’s not territorialism, since Chicago is my adopted home, and my strongest opinions of Wilco were formed before I moved here. I was never an Uncle Tupelo fan – I caught up with them later – so I had no preconceived notions of how Jeff Tweedy’s post-Tupelo project was supposed to sound, or why his later railing against those notions was significant.

But the strong feelings, they are there. So I greeted news of Wilco’s seventh disc, cheekily titled Wilco (The Album), with a mix of dread and curiosity. The album hits shops less than two months after the overdose death of Jay Bennett, the multi-instrumentalist who added immeasurably to Wilco’s terrific early records. Bennett’s death, to me, was the sound of a door slamming – Tweedy hasn’t been the same since Bennett left the band, after the making of Foxtrot, and now we’ll never know if they could have patched things up, both personally and musically.

That said, the more recent six-piece iteration of Wilco is fantastic, at least on paper. Guitar genius Nels Cline is in the band now, as is pianist Mikael Jorgensen and renaissance man Pat Sansone, all superb musicians. Live, they are a force to be reckoned with, as you can hear on the dazzling concert document Kicking Television (and see on last year’s live DVD Ashes of American Flags). But in the studio, they somehow lose all of that verve and fire. I snoozed my way through 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, barely making it all the way through more than once.

After the twin disappointments of Ghost and Sky, I was pretty much done. But then Tweedy hooked me again by penning the funniest, sprightliest song of his career. Last October, Wilco appeared on The Colbert Report, and debuted “Wilco (The Song).” It’s half advertisement and half celebration, pivoting around the terrific line “Wilco will love you, baby.” It was a self-referential joke, but a great one, and a simply wonderful little ditty to boot. And then I heard that “Wilco (The Song)” would lead off the band’s new record, and that it would be called Wilco (The Album), and well, I was in.

Just to seal the deal, the album cover features a camel in a party hat. I’ll repeat that: a camel in a party hat. Add all that jocularity up, and you’d be forgiven for anticipating a fun-loving little rock record, inventive and sparkling and all that good stuff. But no. Wilco is exactly the kind of middling, lazy, flimsy, half-hearted effort I’ve grown to expect from Jeff Tweedy at this point in his career. It’s not just that the rest of the record doesn’t pick up the gauntlet thrown down by “Wilco (The Song),” it’s that it doesn’t even try.

I don’t know about you, but I can only go a couple of years with this sort of thing before I start reassessing my relationship with a band. I heard Wilco (The Album) once, then twice, then decided to hop in the Tardis for a trip through their discography, trying to figure out where the rot set in. Is it me, or is it them? Have they changed, or have I? I wanted to find out.

I said before that I didn’t have preconceived notions about Wilco, but that’s not entirely true – I did completely avoid picking up the band’s debut, A.M., for years because of a single review. Of course, that review ran in Face, the magazine I worked for at the time, and was penned by Rob Comorosky, easily the funniest and most cynical writer on our payroll. I believe he dismissed it, and all country-flavored music, by calling it the soundtrack to a satisfying evening spent sodomizing Ned Beatty. I seem to recall the adjectives “slack-jawed” and “hayseed” in there, too.

So the first Wilco album I picked up was Being There, their double-disc sophomore effort. (Double albums, one of my peculiar weaknesses…) I liked it then, and I like it now, despite a couple of weak moments. It is Wilco’s Exile on Main Street, an extended blues-folk-rock excursion that pushes at the limits of all three styles. It also includes “Say You Miss Me,” one of Tweedy’s finest ballads. As good as it is, you can feel the band bursting at the seams here, aching to try new things.

But let’s back up first. As much as I liked Being There this time around, I was stunned at how much I enjoyed A.M. This is a shit-kicking country rock record, through and through, but it has serious swagger, and songs like “Casino Queen” crackle with an energy you just don’t hear from Tweedy and company any more. Comorosky may consider this backwoods yokel music, but it’s pretty swell stuff from where I’m sitting.

Wilco left those pastures behind for good on 1999’s Summerteeth, an album I liked more this time through than I ever have. It’s pure pop, when it’s not dabbling in experimental textures, and the melodies Tweedy and Bennett came up with here are the best on any Wilco album. At some points, it sounds like the Flaming Lips’ Soft Bulletin, and at others, a Tin Pan Alley throwdown. The pure joy of “Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway(again)” wouldn’t be duplicated until… well, “Wilco (The Song).”

Ah, but then we come to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. And it’s the strangest thing – I felt this time through that I may have overrated the record a little bit. It’s still outstanding, but there are weak moments, and I never really keyed in on them until now. Sonically, it remains their finest work – the record rises and falls rhythmically and gracefully, and its high points, particularly “Jesus, Etc.,” “I’m the Man Who Loves You” and the gorgeous final minutes of “Reservations,” remain moving and extraordinary.

But it’s not the flawless masterpiece my own reviews led me to expect. In particular, the sonic frippery and melodic simplicity of “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” grated on me this time, and I found the album as a whole slower going than I remembered. Enough of it is achingly beautiful that it still holds up as the best Wilco album, but I’m reconsidering its place in the canon.

Still, I think I can definitively trace the decline to A Ghost is Born. Lifeless, listless, self-indulgent, boring, endless – Ghost is all these things and more. It is Wilco’s Kid A, an album of sonic exploration with very few actual songs to prop it up. I forced myself to sit through the 12 minutes of formless, ridiculous noise at the end of “Less Than You Think,” but I promise you, it’s the last time I will do so. There is no reason for this album to last nearly 70 minutes. It is the nadir of Tweedy’s career, and the surest sign that without Bennett, he was lost.

But lo and behold, I think I may have underrated Sky Blue Sky – I ended up enjoying it more than I expected this time. The new six-man Wilco rocked convincingly on the Kicking Television live album the year before, and I guess I expected more in that vein. What I got was a breezy nothing of a record, simple and pretty. It’s the least ambitious thing Tweedy has done in a long time, but on this trip through, I found that to be a plus. It’s nowhere near as good as Summerteeth or Yankee, but nowhere near as bad as I originally thought.

It is, however, complacent, which makes it a good primer for the new album. Wilco has settled into a comfortable groove after its rocky beginnings and growing pains, and my bet is they will never make an album I like as much as Yankee again. Theoretically, the sextet version of Wilco should be able to knock the socks off of earlier lineups, producing a fuller sound and more energetic interplay. Theoretically. But the results so far have been surprisingly lightweight.

So it goes on Wilco (The Album). Leaving aside the sort-of-title-track, the record actually starts strong, with the ebbing and flowing “Deeper Down” and the pretty “One Wing.” We’re in Sky Blue Sky territory again, but it’s not bad. But then we get the nearly unlistenable drone of “Bull Black Nova” (not quite as self-indulgent as “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” but close), and from there, it’s one letdown after another.

Ballad “You and I,” a duet between Tweedy and Leslie Feist, is so featherweight it almost doesn’t exist. It’s one of those songs Paul Simon would have written during his There Goes Rhymin’ Simon period, lame major-key folk that dissipates in the air. “You Never Know” has a cool ‘60s melody and some George Harrison moments, but it’s also inconsequential, and both “Country Disappeared” and “Solitaire” are so boring I don’t even remember them.

Things pick up near the end – “I’ll Fight” has a nice little melody, and the amps actually get switched on for “Sonny Feeling,” before being shoved off the stage for piano-ballad closer “Everlasting Everything.” And that song is pretty good. It has an actual chorus, at least, and some nice textures. But it’s too little too late. The vast majority of Wilco (The Album) is bland, wishy-washy, forgettable stuff. I bet it will come to life on stage, but here, it barely wakes up.

Which is a shame, because “Wilco (The Song)” is ten kinds of wonderful, and is worth hearing on its own. The studio version is a bit noisier than other versions I’ve heard, but the feel-good celebratory atmosphere is preserved intact. And I can’t stop singing it. “Wilco, Wilco will love you, baby…” It’s one of my favorite songs of 2009, kicking off one of my biggest disappointments of the year so far.

That’s not really true, though, because I’ve stopped expecting to like Wilco albums. I don’t enjoy being in this place – I want to like this, not least because I’ve invested a lot into Tweedy and his band, and I don’t want to feel like buying new Wilco albums is an obligation instead of a pleasure. This is the third one in a row that I haven’t felt inspired by, however, and at some point, you just have to call it. I want to love you, Wilco. But you keep trying to break my heart.

Next week, I’m on vacation, but I’ll have something for you anyway. A little Michael Roe, and a little Violet Burning, perhaps. Comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The best, most accurate description of progressive metal I’ve ever heard is also the most vulgar: it’s dick-off music. It’s the musical equivalent of two guys dropping their pants and pulling out the rulers.

I know I’ve just revolted half my readership, but let me explain, because it’s an apt analogy. Prog-metal is entirely – entirely – about how well you can play your chosen instrument. And it’s not enough to be fast and precise, you have to be faster and more precise than anyone else. You’re a drummer? You have to hit those double-bass pedals faster than any other drummer, and come up with the most imaginative (and difficult) fills you can, and play at the upper limits of your skill and pain threshold at all times.

Because you’re always being measured. Fans of prog-metal only want to hear your most intricate, complex, impossible-to-play material. If your song is 15 to 20 minutes long, and has 300 different sections, and an instrumental interlude loaded with lightning-fast solos, you’re on your way. But next, you have to play each of the 65 million little notes exactly right, in exactly the right time, atop 45 shifting time signatures, because the fans will be listening, and they will be grading you.

I say they, but of course, I’m a fan of this stuff too. I like Opeth and Symphony X and Vanden Plas and most of the Inside Out roster, for all the same reasons their other fans do. It’s something of a holdover from my teenage metalhead days – I would spend hours talking with fellow fans about which band could kick which band’s ass, musically speaking, and I love hearing talented players really push themselves. Plus, there’s an absurdity, a heightened sense of the dramatic about this music, and I love that.

But you know, you grow up and you calm down. I’ve found myself less and less excited lately about the prospect of hearing another 78-minute head-spinning metal monstrosity. (Because they are all 78 minutes long, unless they are double albums.) There’s only so much musical exhaustion you can take. I can’t even imagine how the members of these bands play this stuff night after night. In my old age, I’m finding I need some sweetness to contrast with the mayhem.

For more than 15 years, the standard bearer for this kind of thing has been Dream Theater. They play an insanely difficult brand of symphonic metal, equal parts Iron Maiden and 1970s Yes. When I first heard them, around the time of 1992’s Images and Words, they were more traditionally progressive, and I still remember being knocked on my ass by “Lie,” the heavyheavyheavy first single from their next record, 1994’s Awake. It was like Ride the Lightning-era Metallica went away and practiced for 10 years, emerging as this tightly-controlled, complex beast without losing their edge.

But you know, I’ve grown strangely weary of that sound. Because it hasn’t changed, not that much, in the last decade-plus. Sure, they harnessed it for a rock opera (Scenes From a Memory) and a 42-minute interconnected suite (Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence), and with the addition of keyboard genius Jordan Rudess in 1998, they locked into a dizzying groove, but things have become predictable. You know what you’re getting with Dream Theater now, especially since they’ve upped the metal content over the past few albums. “Oh, here comes the four-minute guitar solo.” “Oh, here’s the part where Rudess and John Petrucci play super-fast together, in harmony.” “Oh, here’s the bit in 27/8 time, just because.”

Truth be told, everything from Train of Thought on has bored me somewhat. So I’m stunned at how much I’m enjoying album 10, Black Clouds and Silver Linings. And I think I know why.

Despite the crazy song lengths – four of these six songs blow past 10 minutes, with the longest clocking in at 19:16 – this is the least patience-testing Dream Theater album since Images and Words. The long and flailing solos are still here, but there are fewer of them – the longest is in “A Rite of Passage,” over an extended interlude that could be excised from the song with no harm done. Rather than take every possible opportunity to show off their considerable chops, the DT quintet has written actual songs here. Complicated songs, yes, but memorable and melodic ones as well.

Okay, yes, this album does contain all 12:49 of “The Shattered Fortress,” the final installment of drummer Mike Portnoy’s hour-long saga about his recovery from alcoholism. And this one is pure raging metal, just like all the others – the band’s been doling out this disasterpiece in segments, one an album, since Six Degrees. This final piece is made up mostly of riffs and melodies from the other four, tying things together, but it’s the most difficult 12:49 of the album for me. I much prefer the progressive metal hybrid of opener “A Nightmare to Remember,” which earns most of its 16:10.

Through the first four tracks, this is merely an above-average Dream Theater album, with some mellower moments mixed in. But it’s the final two songs that set this one above and beyond anything DT has done in 10 years. “The Best of Times” is dedicated to Portnoy’s father, Howard, who died this year, and it is the most sustained exploration of pure beauty in this band’s catalog. The song is 13 minutes long, but it feels like half that – it starts with a lovely piano and violin prelude, but soon the full band chimes in with a rocketing skyward ride that reminds me of Rush’s “Red Barchetta.” It never degenerates into showmanship – each change is melodic and strikingly pretty, and the extended, gorgeous guitar finale knocks me out.

And then there is “The Count of Tuscany,” the aforementioned 19:16 closer. Normally, even the thought of a 19-minute Dream Theater song called “The Count of Tuscany” would have me shaking my head, but this one ranks among DT’s very best. It is a tightly-controlled, consistently melodic masterpiece, with virtually no solos and lots of acoustic guitars. This is what I want from Dream Theater. There isn’t a weak moment here – one of the finest progressive epics I’ve heard in a long time. And the concluding minutes? You’d expect a grand finale, with wanking solos all over it, but what DT delivers is actually quite pretty and moving.

So okay, the album itself is 75 minutes long, but if you want to shell out for the deluxe edition, you get another two hours of stuff. The second disc is all covers, and it’s interesting stuff – they do a ripping version of the “Flick of the Wrist” trilogy from Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack, and knock out a fine take on King Crimson’s “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Part 2.” But there aren’t any surprises. They close with Iron Maiden’s “To Tame a Land,” as if we didn’t know they’re all Maiden fans.

And the third disc consists of instrumental mixes of the entire album. These aren’t just instrumentals, though, they’re backing tracks – the solos are all missing as well, so you can really hear the musical hoops the band is jumping through behind them. But it truly exposes and emphasizes the biggest weaknesses of this (and every) Dream Theater album: the lyrics, and James LaBrie’s voice. I won’t go into specifics here, but the lyrics on this album are abysmal, and LaBrie’s metal vibrato is in full force. Despite some great vocal melodies on this record, I find myself preferring some of the instrumental cuts.

But hell, that’s okay, when the musical interplay is as good as it is here. In many ways Dream Theater’s subtlest and prettiest album, Black Clouds and Silver Linings breaks a depressing streak of boring records from this dazzlingly talented group. For a band that often gets lost in its own speed and skill, this record is surprisingly down-to-earth, and reining in those chops turns out to be the best thing they could have done.

As much as Dream Theater has annoyed me over the years, they’ve never made an album I can’t get through. I hesitate to admit this, since I see I reviewed it on March 19 of last year, but I don’t think I ever listened to all of The Bedlam in Goliath, the Mars Volta’s wank-heavy fourth LP. It was everything I can’t stand about them – Cedric Bixler-Zavala screaming and screeching nonsensical lyrics over and over, while Omar Rodriguez-Lopez solos and solos and solos, atop needlessly complex and empty funk-metal backdrops. I don’t think the Mars Volta has written a song I remember since Frances the Mute, honestly.

So imagine my surprise when I spun album five, Octahedron, for the first time, expecting more of the same. Lo and behold, they’ve mellowed right out, and it’s worked wonders for them. Octahedron (their eighth release overall, hence the title) actually begins with a minute and a half of nearly-inaudible keyboard texture, before the slow acoustic guitars of “Since We’ve Been Wrong” slide in. Rather than open with another furious noise-beast that gallops past 10 minutes, the Voltas have opted for a pretty ballad, one that never picks up the pace – and it turns out to be a tone-setter.

The album has one rocker, the brief “Cotopaxi.” Songs stay within reasonable lengths for this band, with only one breaking the eight-minute barrier. The sound is full – this is not an unplugged album, by any means – but the tempos remain in the mid-range, and just about all of them have memorable choruses. “With Twilight as My Guide” is almost a sea shanty, and is the prettiest song the Mars Volta has written. Even when the anthemic shout-chorus of “Desperate Graves” kicks in, the subtle undertones carry over, and the genuine epic at the album’s close, “Luciforms,” displays a sense of real dynamics missing from every other Mars Volta album.

Granted, the lyrics are still incomprehensible nonsense – “Banished to 5th dementia, cables of ringworms have hung themselves, of this I ate, communion shaped, serpent rays in prism tail rainbows escalate…” I can’t honestly decide which is worse, though: the ludicrous nothings on Octahedron, or the plain-spoken and wretchedly simplistic words on Dream Theater’s record. I know the Mars Volta lyrics make me cringe less often, even though I understand almost none of them.

But that’s my only complaint with what is, pound for pound, my favorite Mars Volta album since their debut. I honestly didn’t think they had a record this restrained, this melodic, this flat-out pretty in them. Chances are good that next time, they’ll be back to their flailing, empty-calorie frippery, but I hope they take some lessons from Octahedron, and inject their next record with some of this well-earned subtlety.

I can’t say I’m quite as surprised by Devin Townsend’s new album, Ki. But that’s only because I’ve learned through the years to expect almost anything from Townsend. Over 15 years, the Canadian mad scientist has turned out some of the heaviest music I’ve ever heard, particularly with his band Strapping Young Lad. But he’s also made some monumentally gorgeous records on his own – he’s the originator of what I call ambient metal, a sound so thick and heavy and full that it almost floats in the air. You can listen to a Townsend production a hundred times, on headphones, and hear new things each time.

And truth be told, he’s probably never going to surprise me quite as much as he did in 2007 with Ziltoid the Omniscient. A hysterical concept album about an alien coming to Earth to seek out the universe’s best cup of coffee, Ziltoid managed to be zany and moving at the same time, and take Townsend’s over-the-top metal craziness in new directions. From there, he could have gone anywhere, and it appears that’s exactly what he’s decided to do.

Ki is the first of four Devin Townsend albums slated for release over two years, each in a different style. But even knowing that going in, Ki is a shocker. Townsend has always been about piling on, about packing as much sound as physically possible into each song. But this album is stunningly minimalist, full of clean guitars and genuine ambience. Yes, there are songs like “Disruptr” and “Gato” to keep the headbangers happy, but there is virtually nothing here that could be accurately described as metal. Townsend has stripped down to barest essentials on most of this album – when there are iron fists, they are wrapped in velvet gloves.

The other surprise is Townsend’s voice here. He has an uncommonly strong one – he first came to prominence as the singer for Steve Vai’s band in the early ‘90s, and has alternately belted out melodically or screamed atonally on every song since. But he whispers his way through most of Ki, singing in an almost hushed, reverential way. Take “Terminal,” for example – as a softly thumping bass drum keeps time, Devin spins lovely webs of clean guitar, and graces them with an achingly pretty vocal. It’s just as captivating as it could possibly be.

What’s no surprise is that this album is fantastic. Townsend can play guitar like you wouldn’t believe, but his work here is graceful and understated, never playing ten notes when one will do. His gift for production is in full bloom here as well, minimal as the album is – these songs don’t pack the sonic punch of his other work, but they’re deceptively layered and atmospheric. I certainly don’t want to give the impression that this is a confessional folk offering – some of these songs are even sort of funky, and there are practically no acoustic guitars – but it is remarkably quiet and often beautiful.

Only the rockabilly number “Trainfire” breaks the hypnotic mood, but that’s all right, because it’s great. The majority of the album is given over to tiny epics like “Lady Helen” and the title track. It closes with the brief and subtly menacing “Demon League,” the core of which is just Townsend’s whispered voice and clean guitar. Ki is a stunner – while Townsend has flirted with beauty before, here he dives straight in, and the results are superb. I’m sure future albums in this series will bring back the heavy, but I’m enjoying these dark shadows, these abstract brushstrokes.

I don’t know if this left turn into subtlety counts as a prog-metal trend, but I’m enjoying it. Next week, thoughts on the new Wilco, and a new gospel record from Michael Roe. As a side note, I’m wrapping this up at 9:30 at night on Tuesday, the closest I have cut my Wednesday morning deadline all year. If you’re reading this Wednesday morning, I made it. If not, I’ll make it up to you next week.

Comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I have found myself in the strange position this week of defending Michael Jackson’s place in pop culture.

It’s a strange position because I honestly didn’t think it would need defending. But after Jackson’s sudden death last Thursday at age 50, I’ve fielded many questions and remarks about the strange sideshow his life had become in the past 15 years, and had to remind a surprising number of people of the 25 years or so before that, in which Michael Jackson was pop music.

It’s hard to believe the man was only 50. He started performing with his siblings in the Jackson Five in 1966, when he was just eight years old, and they signed with Motown when he was 10. He released his first solo album, Got to Be There, in 1972, when he was 13. He was only 20 when he recorded Off the Wall. If you’ve heard Off the Wall, you know how insane that is. “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” was the first Michael Jackson original on record, and damn, what an opening gambit.

Then, of course, there was Thriller. Released in 1982, produced by Quincy Jones, recorded when Jackson was only 24, Thriller is an unimpeachably great pop record. It is a dynamic update of the Motown sound, bringing genuine Detroit soul to the mechanical music of the ‘80s. Let’s just run down some of the songs on Thriller, shall we? “Billie Jean.” (We could probably stop there – if Jackson had recorded nothing else, his place in pop history would have been assured.) “Beat It.” “Wanna Be Startin’ Something.” “Thriller.” “Human Nature.” “Baby Be Mine.” “P.Y.T.” The closest this album comes to a loser is the sickly-sweet “The Girl is Mine,” but that’s an old-school Motown ballad in ‘80s clothes.

Thriller is the best-selling album of all time. If it weren’t, it would still be a great record.

And I think Bad, released in 1987, is almost as good. It takes some stylistic detours – the guitar-driven “Dirty Diana,” the goopy ballad “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” – but with Jones back in the producer’s chair, the Motown sound is given another ‘80s spin. “The Way You Make Me Feel” is an awesome little song, as is “Another Part of Me.” Call me a chump, but I love “Man in the Mirror.” And there’s no knocking “Smooth Criminal,” with its immediately memorable groove.

During these years, Jackson was inescapable. He was on MTV every 10 minutes. He did a hundred commercials. He was always in the news (for good stuff). I remember seeing Captain Eo in 3D at Disney World. Jackson was everywhere, the biggest pop star in the world. It’s difficult to remember now, but there was a time when crowds would go wild for him wherever he went. His hit streak continued with Dangerous in 1992, even though the album wasn’t as good – his biggest mistake was replacing Quincy Jones with Teddy Riley, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, creators of the “new jack swing” sound. He left Motown behind on this record, and it suffered for it.

But you know, I still quite like a lot of the insular, paranoid, fascinating HIStory, released in 1995. It’s a crazy, schizophrenic record, Jackson spending half of it lashing out at his detractors, the other half trying to find his joy. The music is mostly minimal and danceable, but the attraction here is Jackson unleashed, striking out against his Disney-fied image. Alas, his final record, 2000’s Invincible, was a disaster, a confused and overstuffed attempt at a commercial comeback.

By that time, Jackson’s reputation was in tatters, his face on tabloids and his name in headlines for increasingly uncomfortable reasons. It’s important to remember he was never charged with a crime. Regardless, many in the court of public opinion convicted Jackson as a child molester, and he did very little to resuscitate his image. His sudden death was the sad last stop in a personal decline that, like the rest of his life, played out in public.

But none of that – none of it – can detract from the musical legacy he left. In particular, Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad are extraordinary pop albums, proof that when he was at the top of his game, Michael Jackson was ridiculously talented. His death still strikes me as surreal – I grew up listening to his stuff, and he’s been a part of the pop cultural landscape for my entire life. I honestly haven’t thought about Michael Jackson the musician for more than a decade, but like many over the past few days, I’ve pulled out my old copies and listened again. They more than deserve the praise I’ve heaped on them.

Rest in peace, Michael. And thanks.

* * * * *

As many of you no doubt know, I’m a fan of Derek Wright’s Liner Notes Magazine.

Specifically, his bi-weekly podcasts, in which he dissects six new albums each time out. Full disclosure – I’ve contributed to those podcasts, on the occasions Derek is nice enough to invite me. But I’d be listening anyway, even if I didn’t know him personally.

In his last missive, Derek gave high marks to the two albums on my docket this week, saying they’ve been all but anointed the best records of 2009 so far by the indie-minded press. And he’s right – it’s a strange quirk of the now-now-NOW music press that they feel they must be the first to proclaim the best stuff of the year. Even if they have to do it the year before – I started hearing best-of-2009 buzz on one of these records, Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest, last November.

The other one, the Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca, seemingly came out of nowhere. But the acclaim it’s gathering has been deafening, at least when it comes to the critics. I am sure, if you walk down any street in America and grab 10 random people, you’ll find just about none of them has even heard of Grizzly Bear or the Dirty Projectors. Such is indie hype – it happens in this little bubble, and only the people inside the bubble truly care.

I do often feel like my invitation to the bubble got lost in the mail. I will admit it, though: I feel guilty if I don’t at least hear hyped-up records like these. Like I’m not doing my job. Veckatimest has been on my list for some time, since I bought and (reservedly) enjoyed Grizzly Bear’s last album, Yellow House. But I picked up Bitte Orca strictly on the strength of the reviews. And perhaps it’s a reaction to the hype, but I haven’t fallen in love with either album so far.

Let’s take Dirty Projectors first. I’m a newbie, so I won’t be able to compare this to their last album. Although as I understand it, that last album (Rise Above) was an attempt to cover Black Flag’s Damaged from memory, so perhaps the comparison wouldn’t be very strong anyway. The Projectors have been around since 2002, a rotating cast of characters surrounding the band’s visionary, Dave Longstreth. Bitte Orca is their seventh album, and reportedly their most concise and accessible.

I can see where it would be. Longstreth’s songs are all over the place here, but you can almost hear him reining himself in. Opener “Cannibal Resource” is a weird mix of afro-pop and Led Zeppelin, with layers of extraordinary backing vocals darting in at odd times. It sounds like it would be impenetrable, but it’s actually pretty accessible stuff. Second track “Temecula Sunrise” is full-on Yes – the acoustic guitars could not be more Steve Howe. It’s here that you get your first really good listen to Longstreth’s voice, part Jeff Buckley and part Antony Hegarty. Some will love it, some will hate it. I am on the fence.

The album goes on like this, like some sort of Cuisinart version of global pop. “Stillness is the Move” is part Japanese rock, part modern soul, with lead vocals by Amber Coffman. “Two Doves” is the record’s prettiest moment, a chamber-pop excursion with a complex melody and a terrific string arrangement. It’s probably my favorite thing here, and Coffman’s supple voice works wonders with it. Longstreth doesn’t do quite as well with the Radiohead-tinged “Useful Chamber,” the album’s longest song at 6:28. I do like the guitar fills on “No Intention,” and its soaring chorus.

Still, I’m finding that Bitte Orca is keeping me at arm’s length. Part of it is that, while I find the mix of styles and sounds compelling, the songs themselves aren’t doing much for me. I’m on my fourth listen now, and some, like “Remade Horizon,” are just starting to stick – that one combines a lounge music verse with an Afro-pop chorus, complete with distorted electronic bass. But it’s repetitive, and even over four minutes, it wears thin. And some songs, like “The Bride,” have failed to register at all.

It could be that Bitte Orca is a grower that’s just taking a while, but so far, I’m responding to this the same way I respond to Fiery Furnaces albums: I’m working to parse it, instead of sitting back and enjoying it. This is by no means a bad album, but it is a difficult one, and I’m not finding the beauty in its corners that some have. And perhaps it’s because this is my first Dirty Projectors album, and I can’t marvel at how streamlined it all is in comparison. I understand this is their least difficult work, a tasty reward for those who have followed along.

I haven’t, but I will stick with Bitte Orca anyway, and hopefully come to love it. I can see how I would, eventually. As it is, I respect and appreciate it, but I’m not feeling it yet.

Grizzly Bear actually suffers from the opposite problem: rather than taking in a million influences and diving from style to style, Veckatimest stays within narrowly defined parameters for its entire running time. As a result, the album is dull and meandering on first listen, and only after a few spins does it start to take shape.

By all rights, I should love Grizzly Bear. They play a low-key form of acoustic-based mood music, rarely rocking their own boat – it’s float music with an earthy feel, if that makes sense. I usually respond well to this sort of thing, but every Grizzly Bear album has been hard work for me, and it comes down to the same problem that plagues Bitte Orca: these songs, on their own, just aren’t very compelling. The best thing on Veckatimest is single “Two Weeks,” which strides forward on a ‘60s-style piano part and vocal arrangement. But Brian Wilson would never have settled for the simple melody at the core of this song.

Once again, though, I very much admire the sound of Veckatimest. Over three albums, the Bears have grown from a bedroom project for Ed Droste to a full-blooded band, and they’ve used the studio as another instrument here, adding sonic depth without ever abandoning their lo-fi roots. “Two Weeks” is simply gorgeous, particularly the vocals, and it provides ample contrast for the relatively sedate “All I Ask,” sequenced next. They incorporate choirs and strings on this record, and yet still come away with something that sounds homespun.

I wish they’d put as much work into the songs. “All I Ask” is a good example of what’s wrong with this album – it wanders around in search of any kind of melody for more than five minutes, ending up where it started. Chords shift with no real momentum, no build to anything – the song kind of happens, then it stops happening, and the world remains unchanged. Sadly, the same thing happens six more times in a row, before “While You Wait for the Others” charges in to save the second half.

That song brings the electric guitars to the fore, and gets those Brian Wilson vocals going again, giving them their best “ooh-ooh” melody since “Two Weeks,” more than half an hour previous. The final two songs keep the forward momentum going – “I Live With You” is almost psychedelic in its ebb and flow, choirs ringing in to fill out the sound, and “Foreground” is the album’s most lovely moment, its slowly cycling piano augmented by dark strings. But it’s too late – the bulk of Veckatimest is given over to dull pieces that just kind of lie there. Even “Foreground” seems to peter out without reaching any sort of climax.

It probably just comes down to what I’m looking for, which I know is different from what a lot of critics want in their music. Both Bitte Orca and Veckatimest are sonically stunning albums, but they don’t contain any songs I’ll be singing by year’s end, and I expect by next month, I won’t even feel compelled to keep working at them. From a certain standpoint – sonic exploration, sounds that Move Music Forward – I can see how these records would be competing for best of 2009. As it stands right now, I don’t think they’ll even be fighting for an honorable mention on my list.

* * * * *

Speaking of my list, it’s time for the Second Quarter Report.

For newbies: every year I have a running top 10 list, which I add to and subtract from as new music comes out. For a few years now, I’ve been posting that list-in-progress at the end of each quarter, so readers can see where I’m headed before the big reveal in December. Halfway through 2009, the top five on my list is pretty amazing – I’d be okay if nothing changed there before the end of the year, but I’m still hoping something else (Armistice? Please?) comes along to shake things up.

Still, I’m pretty happy as it stands. I do have a tie for the #10 spot, and if this were the final list, I would choose one to receive an honorable mention. But it’s not, so I won’t. That aside, here’s what my top 10 list would look like if today were December 31:

#10. The Bird and the Bee, Ray Guns are Not Just the Future; Richard Swift, The Atlantic Ocean. (tie)
#9. British Sea Power, Man of Aran.
#8. Loney, Dear, Dear John.
#7. Tinted Windows.
#6. Duncan Sheik, Whisper House.
#5. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion.
#4. Bat for Lashes, Two Suns.
#3. Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown.
#2. Quiet Company, Everyone You Love Will Be Happy Soon.
#1. The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love.

And there you have it. Comments and questions welcome at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

Next week, progging out with Dream Theater, the Mars Volta and Devin Townsend. After that, a little Wilco, a little Michael Roe, and a little Dead Weather.

See you in line Tuesday morning.