I’m allergic to hype anyway, but indie hype just makes my skin crawl.

Every 20 minutes, it seems, some new group is being crowned the Best Band You’ve Never Heard, and indie tastemakers fall all over themselves to be the first to sing praises, mainly so they can later claim credit for being out in front of the zeitgeist. The result is an endless parade of breathless reviews of bands no one has ever heard of, each one proclaiming that the latest collective of 20-year-olds who can barely play their instruments will Change Your Life.

Even as I was typing the above paragraph, I realized two things about it: my description sounds uncannily like what I do here week in and week out, and I couldn’t have sounded more old and out of touch if I’d concluded my thoughts by saying, “Now get off my lawn.” I’m really not this crotchety, I promise. My main objection to indie hype is simple: there’s a lot of music to keep up with, and it’s hard enough for an obsessive like me without being misdirected. And I feel like a lot of “tastemaker” reviews are misleading, caught up in the excitement of being first out of the gate.

Every year, there are at least half a dozen new bands I’m supposed to have an opinion on. People will ask me about them, too. I got numerous emails last year when Girls’ album (wittily titled Album) hit stores. I’d heard a couple of tracks, and had no interest in buying it, but after a while, I felt obligated. As a critic, I felt like I had to have some thoughts about this thing. I know, that’s insane, but still. I was even angrier at myself when I discovered that Album is total crap, a collection of same-old-same-old garage rock clichés.

That’s been my experience more often than not. Every year, I scan Pitchfork’s top albums list, and I make it a point to hear the ones I haven’t. They’re usually not worth the effort. I’m also generally less interested in new bands than I am accomplished ones. Debut albums are fine and all, but the true test of a group’s worth comes from their subsequent efforts, I feel. I lauded Vampire Weekend’s first one, for example, but found their second, Contra, lacking. If their third is half-hearted, too, I will scrub them from my “bands to watch” list.

On the other hand, I am very excited for Rufus Wainwright’s new one, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu. It will be his sixth, not counting live records. Wainwright’s self-titled debut was passable, but offered few hints of the songwriter he’d soon become. It wasn’t until his third, Want One, that he truly blossomed. I don’t regret buying the self-titled album, but I liked it more for its potential than for its actual music. And I hope my review (written for Face Magazine in 1998) reflected that.

I guess what I’m saying is, I try to maintain a balance here between jittery enthusiasm and world-weary cynicism. I know most of the new bands that debut this year won’t make it past their second record. I know it’s foolhardy to talk about any of them as if they’re important. And yet, I’ve been trying to give these new bands an even chance, buying the ones that sound interesting and pulling for the acts that turn in reasonably good work their first time out.

I still can’t escape the feeling that I’m supposed to have an opinion about these bands, however. So I picked a few I liked to talk about this time. These are bands embraced by the likes of Pitchfork, bands that are only considered overexposed in those rarified circles. I’m like the rest of you – I would never have heard of any of these acts without the urging of the ear-to-the-ground tastemakers, who enthusiastically supported all of these records.

I guess that means they’ve done some good, but those same tastemakers also enthusiastically supported some of the most awful crap I’ve had the misfortune to hear in the past few years, which I also would not have bought without their urging. I guess it’s like anything else – you have to figure out what works for you.

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In indie terms, Hot Chip has been around forever. The British quintet is now on its fourth album, having released its debut in 2004. They play danceable pop music, mostly synthesized, but with nice melodies. They’re like Depeche Mode, if they took happy pills and stopped dressing in black.

After hearing a couple of their four-on-the-floor singles in recent years, I steadfastly avoided buying any of Hot Chip’s albums. The songs just didn’t do it for me. But there’s such a buzz around their fourth, One Life Stand, that I decided to give it a go. I was immediately struck by how much the opening tracks sound like the Pet Shop Boys – Alexis Taylor has a clear, somewhat thin voice, and the band lays down computerized arpeggios and blip-beats behind him. Opener “Thieves in the Night” could easily fit onto any Pet Shop Boys album released in the last decade.

As I understand things, One Life Stand is the album on which Hot Chip matured, writing more directly emotional songs than ever before. The first three tracks don’t bear that out, sticking to dancefloor rhythms and simple lyrics, but that doesn’t stop “I Feel Better” from being the record’s best tune, its synth strings complementing Taylor’s swooping melody perfectly. The title track, which comes next, is also quite danceable, but its lyrics turn to fidelity: “All I want is a one-life stand…” Maturity, at this point on the record, looks good on them.

Unfortunately, it all goes south from there, as the emotional content overwhelms the melodic. I have not heard a more boring stretch of goopy balladry than “Brothers,” “Slush” and “Alley Cat” this year, together an interminable 16-and-a-half minutes of slow drudgery. The record rights itself by the end – closer “Take It In” is nicely anthemic – but it’s too late. One Life Stand has been dealt a fatal blow.

Still, there’s enough interesting stuff here to pique my interest in the earlier records. As for whether I’ll buy Hot Chip’s fifth album, whenever it’s released, that’s still up in the air.

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Much more successful is Yeasayer, an experimental trio from Brooklyn. Their appealing debut, All Hour Cymbals, dabbled in Animal Collective-style psychedelica with flavors from around the globe mixed in. Still, it was largely formless, and after the riveting “Wait for the Summer,” it basically fell apart. There was enough there to hold my interest in a second album, though, and with Odd Blood, the Yeasayers have delivered big time.

Strangely enough, the reason I like this is probably the very reason it’s been getting middling reviews: Odd Blood is a kickass pop album. An off-kilter, strange little pop album, but a pop album nonetheless. The band has concentrated on melodies and choruses and good old-fashioned songwriting here, and they’ve incorporated a winning ‘80s influence, both musically and lyrically. Once you get past the first track, the loping and off-putting “The Children,” little else here takes itself seriously at all. And that’s what makes it such a grand old time.

Single “Ambling Alp” finds Chris Keating sounding like Raine Maida from Our Lady Peace, grooving on a dazzling little chorus: “You’ve got to stick up for yourself, son, never mind what anybody else does.” Yeasayer take their own advice on every track, from the soaring “ooh-ooh-oohs” of mid-tempo stunner “Madder Red” to the limber disco wonderland of “O.N.E.” (just wait until the Thompson Twins-esque synths come in on the chorus), and even to titling a song “Love Me Girl.” Sometimes you’ll think you’re listening to Wham’s much cooler cousins.

In some ways, the whole album is prelude to “Rome,” the greatest stomper in the bunch. From the first notes, you know you’re in for something – it’s part Moroccan dance music, part Prince, and all relentless. Throughout this record, Yeasayer consistently find interesting ways to create this music, taking from virtually every global source they can find, and mixing with abandon. Still, the end result is just an awe-inspiring pop record, one you don’t need to study to enjoy.

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While Yeasayer took an extraordinary left turn into popland, Baltimore dream weavers Beach House have never really changed. Over three albums, the duo of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally has slowly and methodically built up its hazy, lazy sound. Beach House records sound like half-remembered visions at first, cloudy and easy to simply watch pass by.

Their third, Teen Dream, is very similar to the last two, but to these ears, it sounds like something of a breakthrough. There are many things they did right here – the focus is on Scally’s twangy, reverbed guitar, rather than Legrand’s woozy keyboards, and Legrand finally wrote herself some deliriously fine melodies to wrap her haunting voice around. True, the tempo is more suitable for sleepwalking than dancing, but this time, the songs will take hold and stick with you.

Legrand has certainly never sounded better. She’s kind of a mixture of Hope Sandoval (of Mazzy Star) and Stevie Nicks, and Beach House songs have rarely given her the chance to show off her pipes. “Silver Soul” sets that right – the refrain is a simple “it’s happening again,” but Legrand sings the hell out of it. “Norway” and “Walk in the Park” follow suit, their sweetly ascending melodies sounding just beautiful coming from Legrand’s mouth.

But it’s “Used to Be” that takes the gold, a delightful piano piece with a chorus that’ll make you smile, and a coda (“coming home, any day now…”) that’ll make you shiver. The rest of Teen Dream is lovely as well, much better than anything else they’ve done, and by the end I can’t help thinking that this is the perfect Beach House album. If Legrand and Scally make another, as they probably will, they’ll either have to build on this somehow, or take that left turn somewhere else. Either way, I’ll be listening.

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Which brings us to Local Natives, the most recent indie buzz “ohmigodbuythisNOW” band I’ve encountered. I admit I get a little turned off by tsunamis of excitement surrounding a band with only one album, particularly considering the hype actually started last year, before the debut, Gorilla Manor, was released. It’s their first time out. How great can it possibly be?

Well, it’s pretty good, to be honest. Local Natives draw from two other acts with very successful debut albums: rhythmically, they take from Vampire Weekend, and melodically, they are reminiscent of Fleet Foxes. They have those high, wonderful harmonies, and an appealing sense of woodsy, organic charm. But they are much more propulsive than the Foxes, matching kinetic electric guitars with jets of percussion. And they’ve written some fine songs as well.

The best of those, to my ears, is “Sun Hands,” a circular drive of a piece that darts ahead adroitly, meeting an enchanting “ah-ah-ah-ah” refrain head-on. The other 11 songs are nice as well, and it takes a few listens to hear all the little things the band has done, from percussion breakdowns to a cappella sections to tribal shouts to clean webs of guitar. This is a very well-made record, particularly for a debut, and even though Local Natives sound like an even blend of indie’s greatest hits over the last few years, their sound works.

This album doesn’t have the magic of Fleet Foxes, although moments of it – like the sweet “Who Knows Who Cares” – are soul-liftingly pretty. And unlike a lot of of-the-moment debuts, this one doesn’t fall apart halfway through. Even as late as the penultimate track, the string-laden piano waltz “Stranger Things,” they’re still full of surprises. Gorilla Manor is an uncommonly good first album, and I hope the Natives can stick with it, and make a second and third to match.

Of course, I’ve rated many debut albums quite highly – think Mutemath, and Keane, and Fleet Foxes, and the list goes on and on. Do I think Local Natives are worthy of the hype that’s surrounded them for a year? Probably not. On the evidence of Gorilla Manor, they’re a good band, but only time will tell if they can become an important one. For now, though, check this out. It’s as fine a debut record as you’re likely to hear this year.

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And now, the next installment in my Top 20 of the 2000s. I’ll keep this one short, for obvious reasons.

#14. The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love (2009).

I don’t have much more to say about The Hazards of Love than I did two months ago, when I proclaimed it the best album of 2009. Colin Meloy’s masterpiece is one of the most complete pieces of music released in the last 10 years, a single hour-long song telling an intricate, warped folk tale full of pain and death. I admire it for indulging in the album-length statement with a tricky and emotionally resonant plotline. I love it for simply being an amazing piece of music.

Meloy took from so many sources here – English folk music, centuries-old balladry, progressive rock, blues – and every one of them is a storytelling medium. He hired Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond and Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond to play the female roles, adding to the sense of watching a particularly good Shakespeare-in-the-park performance. And he wrote Hazards like a play, as motifs and lyrics from the first act take on new resonance in the second.

But mostly, this thing rocks like no Decemberists album before it. It’s here not just because it’s a challenging, brilliantly-written work that takes a bold stand for the album in the age of the download single, but because it’s a terrific, engaging, wholly enjoyable piece of music from first note to last. The Hazards of Love is a rock opera for people who hate rock operas, a gloriously mad and perfectly realized dark fairy tale set to extraordinary music. If you have the chance to see the band perform it live, in sequence, don’t pass it up. It will drive the album home for you – this is a singular work from a singular band, making music that no one else on earth is making.

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Next week, triple albums from Joanna Newsom and Leyland Kirby. Also coming soon, the final Johnny Cash album, and lovely records from Shearwater and Midlake. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

You may not have noticed this, but MTV finally dropped the words “Music Television” from its logo last week.

Some are calling this a seismic shift, but to me, it’s the first honest thing this network has done in more than a decade. When MTV kicked off its first broadcast, in 1981, it was devoted to music – so much so that industry analysts predicted it would only last a few months. No one wants to see music videos all the time, they said.

They were wrong. We loved music videos, we children of the ‘80s. We lapped them up like candy. It was our first opportunity to see just what our favorite artists looked like, and get a visual peek into their brains. And artists like Peter Gabriel and Michael Jackson and Madonna picked up the music video ball and ran with it, crafting iconic representations of their songs. It was the dawning of an age of calculated image manipulation, no doubt, but it was also an outlet for bands and musicians, another way to get their music heard.

With shows like 120 Minutes and Headbanger’s Ball, MTV even opened the door to lesser-known acts. It was like the greatest radio station in the world, and it played 24 hours a day. I discovered so many new artists through MTV, and my awakening as a music fan is firmly tied to the network’s burgeoning first years. And you know, MTV kept its focus for a long time. I remember watching it through the ‘90s, seeing Beck’s “Loser” and Radiohead’s “Karma Police” and countless others.

The last artist I remember discovering through MTV was Ours, in 2001. Even then, the rot was setting in. These days, you’ll be lucky to find a music video on MTV. It’s all reality shows like Jersey Shore and True Life and Pregnant at 16. It’s a lifestyle channel, a cultural barometer. It holds little interest for music fans, and I think it’s about time they stopped advertising it as music television. It simply isn’t that anymore.

I may sound like I’m eulogizing MTV, even though it’s still on the air. I think rather I’m mourning what it used to be. The Internet has really taken over as the source for new music, so I don’t necessarily miss what MTV used to provide. But I do miss the idea of a channel devoted solely to music, and staffed with music fans. When it started out, MTV was daring, almost illicit. It was a fly-by-night rebel base of a channel, run by people who couldn’t wait to bring you the music they loved.

Now it’s a corporate mouthpiece selling a teenage lifestyle, complete with the right jeans and the right makeup and the right shoes. The transformation has been a sad one to watch, and now with even the word “music” removed from its logo, I can’t think of a single reason I’ll ever tune in again. I’ve been sad and angry about this for a while, but it took the reformatting of the logo to make me realize what a good thing MTV used to be, and what a sad thing the corporate execs have replaced it with.

But hey, at least they’re not lying about it anymore.

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Spoon’s Transference broke my computer.

Okay, not my entire computer, but certainly my speakers. I first listened to the seventh album by Austin’s finest over the Internet, and found it baffling. It sounded to me like someone had spilled coffee on the mixing desk – sounds dropped out, then came back in without warning, and the whole thing came off as a ragged mess. This led to me walking around for a couple of days panning the record, and claiming not to understand what they were aiming for.

Of course, now I know just what happened. One of my speakers is now blown, the other in bad shape, and the complex (for Spoon anyway) production of Transference was lost blasting through them in their weakened state. It’s still an interesting patchwork of a record, but not nearly as baffling as I first thought. In fact, it only took a few listens through to realize this is my favorite Spoon album. So apologies to everyone I warned away from this record. If you dig Spoon, you will really dig this.

Transference is Spoon’s attempt at going big, without losing their minimalist indie roots. This band has always been about only doing what’s needed to get the song across, and no more. They have a thumping swagger about them, an appealing confidence that sells even their simplest tunes. And some of them are very simple, based on one or two notes repeated. The songs on Transference are no exception, but there’s more going on in the corners of this album than ever before. It just rarely happens all at once.

Take the opener, “Before Destruction.” It begins with a bass drum, a hi-hat, an organ and an acoustic guitar, strumming one chord. But as Britt Daniel’s vocals come in, everything else drops away, leaving just that guitar. Spoon songs don’t build up in the traditional way. They blossom and decay, most often in ways you’d never expect. A surprising amount of “Before Destruction” is Daniel and the acoustic – it’s just the bare bones of the song.

Much of Transference is fuller, or at least gives off the illusion of fullness. There’s a “Tomorrow Never Knows” vibe to “The Mystery Zone,” with its throbbing one-note bassline and swirling vocals. The Spoon of old would have been content with the flickering guitars and tone-setting pianos, but there’s a subtle string section here, and it works beautifully. “Who Makes Your Money” struts along on a slinky bass figure and little else, and “Written in Reverse” is built almost entirely around a sloppy-cool two-chord piano line, but it builds into a full-band stomp that feels like a climax.

Here and there, Daniel has let a bit of ambition creep into the songwriting too. At 5:31, “I Saw the Light” is the longest album track Spoon has ever released, and while it starts unassumingly enough, it flips itself on its ear halfway through for a long, repetitive, and very cool coda. Of course, one song later, Daniel includes a straight-ahead home demo of the Stones-y “Trouble Comes Running,” complete with lots and lots of tape hiss. For every moment of professionalism here, there’s an equal and opposite moment of scrappy inventiveness.

For all its moving parts, the most affecting moment on Transference is “Goodnight Laura,” another demo-sounding track capturing Daniel and a piano, and nothing else. The record ends with the very odd disco number “Nobody Gets Me But You,” and if they’d only shifted “Goodnight Laura” to the closing spot, this would have been the perfect Spoon album. Still, it is, for my money, the best thing they’ve done, a fully-formed exploration of minimal maximalism that stays true to their core sound. Oh, and it rocks, too.

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In some circles, Aaron Sprinkle is a legend.

A singer-songwriter from Seattle, Sprinkle got his start as the guitarist of Poor Old Lu, a grungy outfit that made four increasingly terrific records in the ‘90s and early 2000s. He went on to record a number of swell solo albums, and produce more than 40 records for bands like Starflyer 59, Eisley, Pedro the Lion, Emery and Mae. Along the way, he’s found the time to form a new band, called Fair, and they’ve just released their second album.

And yet, he remains essentially unknown. I’ve had more than a dozen people ask me what I think of Spoon’s new record, and yet no one I know has been anticipating Fair’s sophomore effort, Disappearing World, like I have. It’s probably no surprise which one I like better, but what might be surprising is just how audience-friendly and universally appealing Disappearing World is. It’s one of those records nearly everyone would like, if they only gave it a chance.

Fair’s first album, The Best Worst-Case Scenario, was a scrappy little indie-pop record, fueled by loud guitars and a live-band feel. But Disappearing World is a different beast – a little glossier, a little more ambitious. It’s a bigger and clearer vision, surrounding and augmenting 10 of the best songs Sprinkle has written. There are songs here that should be burning up the radio, songs you’ll be singing in your head for days afterwards.

Case in point: about three weeks before buying Disappearing World, I heard the title track online. I only played it once, but when I cued up the CD for the first time more than 20 days later, I remembered almost every note, like recalling an old friend. It’s not even close to the catchiest or most memorable tune here, but it burrowed its way into my brain after one spin. That’s impressive.

The second track is even more so. “Wayside” starts off with a nice piano figure, but soon explodes into a propulsive, melodic freight train of a tune. Sprinkle’s high and clear voice has rarely sounded better than it does here, slipping into falsetto one moment and belting it out the next. The full-band crescendo that concludes this track is singularly thrilling, Joey Sanchez just pummeling those drums until they cry uncle. It’s an awesome song, performed awesomely.

Disappearing World doesn’t hit those heights again, but every song is solid and memorable. “Walking in My Sleep” is a piano-pounding march with a straight-ahead chorus and some dirty organ playing in the background. The ballad “Take Some Risks” brings out the string section, but makes room for a “November Rain”-style soaring guitar solo. “Escape Artist” has a Coldplay-meets-John Lennon vibe to it, and “It’s Doubtful” is a roaring guitar-pop song that can hold its head high with some of the greats.

Oddly, the record’s one disappointment is “The Worst of Your Wear,” a collaboration with Aaron Marsh of Copeland that never seems to find a direction. But the record rights itself with “Great Divide,” a wonderful, loping tune bursting with melody. Closer “Anymore” starts off slow, but by the end, the band is on overdrive, crashing headlong into an abrupt skid-stop. And then you press play again.

Disappearing World offers no clues as to why Aaron Sprinkle has flown below the radar his whole career. This record sounds like his attempt to rectify that slight, and he’s jumped in with both feet, turning in an accessible and thoroughly enjoyable collection. In a just world, you’d be hearing these songs on the radio every day. Alas, we live in this one, and Disappearing World will likely be ignored. But that doesn’t mean you have to ignore it too. Lovers of guitar-pop and finely crafted melodies won’t want to be without this record. As the man says in “Great Divide,” you might hesitate, but I don’t recommend it.

Check out the band here. Buy Disappearing World here.

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Andrew Bird may get all the press, but when it comes to violin-playing geniuses, for my money, you can’t beat Owen Pallett.

He’s best known as the guy who plays and arranges strings for Arcade Fire, but over three increasingly complex albums as Final Fantasy, Pallett has created some of the most fascinating and delightfully odd mini-orchestral music you’re likely to find. He’s a studio wizard, looping his own violins and violas over and over to create massive washes of sound, but he’s also a terrific songwriter and arranger – Final Fantasy tunes are dramatic and memorable things, despite Pallett’s limited vocal range.

For his third, Heartland, he’s gone even bigger. It’s a concept album about a guy named Lewis who undertakes a spiritual journey, and instead of Pallett’s usual one-man-string-section sound, he’s enlisted the Czech Symphony Strings on nearly every track. The result is grandiose, even more so than anything he’s done with Arcade Fire, and yet it retains the oddball charm of the two previous Final Fantasy records. Heartland is a monumental work, but it contains those ambitions to 46 minutes. It’s something of a pocket symphony.

If you’re concerned about Andrew Lloyd Webber-ness creeping in, don’t be. No matter how huge the sound, Pallett keeps his eye on the ball – in this case, a glorious Brian Wilson-esque sense of melody and movement. Opener “Midnight Directives” sounds like the start of a long journey, its chorus buoyed by muted horns. Follow-up “Keep the Dog Quiet” is creepy and atmospheric, strings slowly building up as Pallett’s voice hits the high notes. (He even pinches one of Win Butler’s lines for the opening: “My body is a cage…”) From here on out, you’re on a trip, and Heartland carries you along like a wave.

Other highlights? “Red Sun No. 5” sounds straight out of Pet Sounds, right down to the tympanis. “Lewis Takes Action” uses the “Be My Baby” drum pattern to support more Beach Boys-esque beauty, complete with gorgeous string and horn parts. It is here that the lyrics turn truly surreal: “I took a no-face by his beak and broke his jaw, he’ll never speak again…” Things get even weirder from there – see the flurry of drum programming on “The Great Elsewhere” – but they’re always balanced off by lovely melodies. You may even get something like “Oh Heartland, Up Yours” stuck in your head.

Still, this is not an album for the faint of heart, or the musically unadventurous. It is, in many ways, a single sweeping song, and it takes several listens to grasp just what Owen Pallett’s up to here. It’s not easy, but it is worth it. By the time the album concludes, with the massive six-minute “Tryst With Mephistopheles” and the surprisingly abrupt coda “What Do You Think Will Happen Now,” you feel like you’ve truly been taken on a ride through bizarre worlds of cotton candy and blood and thunder, guided by a brilliant madman. Heartland is wild and wondrous and thoroughly awesome.

As a side note, Pallett announced prior to Heartland’s release that he would be dropping the Final Fantasy moniker and sticking with his own name. However, my CD still says Final Fantasy, on the spine and the liner notes. So that’s where I’m filing this, just to avoid confusion. Besides, with half a dozen other musicians and the Czech Symphony Strings on board, this is less of a solo album than anything Pallett’s made. That’s how I’m rationalizing it, anyway.

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And now, the next installment in my Top 20 Albums of the 2000s.

#15. Silverchair, Young Modern (2007).

My excitement over Young Modern has cooled somewhat in the two-plus years since it came out. I’m not sure I would call it the best album of 2007 anymore, but hell, I still like it enough to include it among the 20 best records of the decade, so it must be doing something right.

Part of that initial thrill was in hearing just how far Daniel Johns had come. You may remember Silverchair as the Australian trio who aped Pearl Jam down to the last detail on their 1995 debut Frogstomp. That remains their most successful album in the U.S. – it went platinum and hit number nine on the Billboard charts. It is how they’re remembered here, as a bunch of kids playing godawful grunge and moaning about how bad their lives are. Frogstomp is an awful, awful record, which makes Johns’ amazing growth as a songwriter even more remarkable.

The change has been coming for a while. Silverchair’s third and fourth albums, Neon Ballroom and Diorama, incorporated more pure pop influences and more sonic colors, and Johns’ side project with keyboardist Paul Mac, The Dissociatives, took that even further. But nothing could have prepared me for Young Modern, a collection of songs so brilliant, so well-made, that Johns immediately catapulted into my list of favorite songwriters.

People laugh at me for talking up Silverchair, but Young Modern itself is the best way to shut them up. The first two songs are the most accessible, “Young Modern Station” grooving along through a killer chorus and then sliding into “Straight Lines,” a smooth and melodic pop gem. From there, the album goes nuts, from the crazy carnival ride of “If You Keep Losing Sleep,” to the ELO tributes “Low” and “Insomnia,” to the choir-of-angels bliss-out of “Waiting All Day.” Every song is a winner, none of them going the places you’d expect.

Johns shines throughout – Young Modern is really his coming-out party as a phenomenal pop songwriter. But as good as everything else is, the seven-minute “Those Thieving Birds” trilogy is his crowning achievement. The centerpiece of Young Modern, the piece starts with acoustic guitars and vocals, but ends up darting down one melodic path after another, helped along by robust string arrangements from Van Dyke Parks. Daniel Johns was in his mid-20s when he wrote and recorded this tune, and it’s one that would make older and wiser songsmiths weep with envy.

Young Modern has its faults. It’s a little too stuffed with keyboard sounds, and occasionally tries to do too much. But I’ll gladly take wild ambition over the safe and the formulaic. There’s nothing safe about Young Modern. It is one of the most daring, exciting and well-crafted pop albums of the 2000s, and it signals the emergence of a master songwriter. Where Daniel Johns goes from here should be fascinating to watch.

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Another long one! We’ll see what we can do about taking it down a notch next week. I’ll be reviewing some albums I’m supposed to have an opinion on, if you believe the press and the hype. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I know I promised you some thoughts on Lost’s season premiere last week. And I should have seen this coming, but I don’t have much to say about it that wouldn’t be an enormous spoiler. Considering the new revelations, the twists and turns, and the oh-my-freaking-god moments this episode delivered in spades, I don’t want to do that.

So let me just say this: Lost is the best show on television. Full stop. Three years ago, as the third season slowly unwound, I was all but ready to give up on it. My biggest fear has always been that the writers and producers don’t know where they’re going with all this, and the formless, wandering nature of much of the third season fed those fears. And then they negotiated their ending with ABC – six seasons, done and out. And this, miraculously, freed them.

As we start the sixth and final season, I am absolutely convinced that the writers not only know where their labyrinthine plot is headed, but exactly how to get there, down to what information to parcel out in which of the final 18 episodes. But more than that, they know exactly who all their characters are, and how and why they’ve ended up in these squares on the big chessboard. For all its sky-high mythology and insanely complex plotting, Lost has always been about its characters, and after five years, they’re real – they live and breathe, and the toll the story has taken on them is truly painful. It’s a huge show, but its most important moments are almost imperceptibly small.

Lots of similar-sounding shows have come and gone in Lost’s wake, and none of them remembered to humanize their grand ideas the way the Lost team has. The Grand Idea at the start of the sixth season essentially turns the format of the show into a metatextual metaphor for its central question: can we change our own destinies? But beyond all of the wizardry on display, it’s the way this Grand Idea affects our characters, the subtle changes in them that longtime viewers can easily see, that counts.

I have no idea how many of Lost’s secrets and myths will be explained in this final season. And you know what? In some ways, it doesn’t matter to me. What matters is how this show leaves our characters, and which ones end up believing that their lives are in their own hands. We’re racing headlong towards what will no doubt be a mind-bending conclusion, and I’ll most likely have my head spun around a few more times before we get there. But I’ll really be watching for the little moments, the ways the characters change and grow, before the end. And I know now that those moments are at least as important to the Lost team (if not more important) as the hydra-headed plot.

Of course, my bet with Mike Ferrier still stands. If the writers don’t explain why Hurley’s numbers worked their way into our characters’ lives so often, then the sixth season DVD set will be mine, all mine, for free. I’ll keep you posted.

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Before we get to this week’s musical cornucopia, I have a couple of reactions to the Oscar nominations.

The Academy’s insistence that opening the Best Picture category up to 10 nominees would give voters a more varied slate certainly seems to have paid off. Most gratifyingly, the geniuses at Pixar finally got their first Best Picture nomination for Up, their saddest, most human, and most triumphant work. It has no chance of taking home the prize, particularly since it’s also nominated for Best Animated Film, an award it is sure to win. But it’s nice to see it sitting up there with the big boys.

Of course, it’s a cartoon that will take the top prize. Last month, I would have laughed at anyone who predicted James Cameron’s Avatar for Best Picture, but with its Golden Globe win, and its stunning box office, it’s practically a lock. And that’s a shame, because I like just about every other nominee more. (District 9 was a disappointment, and I refuse to see The Blind Side. But the other seven? Hell yes.) If I had to pick from these 10, I would probably go with The Hurt Locker, one of the most riveting war movies I have ever seen. Either that or the whimsical and emotional Up in the Air.

As usual, though, there are a couple of striking omissions, most gratingly the complete shut-out for my favorite movie of 2009, Away We Go. It’s a gorgeous, funny, moving film, and it showcases a revelatory performance by Saturday Night Live alum Maya Rudolph. And yet? Nothing. I also would have given some love to (500) Days of Summer and The Hangover, simply the funniest movie I saw last year.

But we can’t expect perfection. I love that Jeremy Renner is up for Best Actor, and Kathryn Bigelow for Best Director (only the fourth woman to be nominated in that category). I love that Christoph Waltz was an unknown just one year ago, and now he’s all but guaranteed the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. I love that Mo’Nique will likely win Best Supporting Actress for her amazing, heart-rending turn in Precious. (Where the hell has she been hiding this extraordinary talent?) And I love, love, love that Carey Mulligan, who dazzled as Sally Sparrow on Doctor Who two years ago, is nominated for her glorious work in An Education. A star is born, and the Who team was there first! How wonderful.

The Oscars will be given out on March 7. I know, it’s a silly awards show, and it means nothing. But it’s fun. And I really want Avatar to win every technical award, and lose the big prize – I’ve really come to see it as a battle for the future of moviemaking. As impressive as Avatar is, I’m hoping the Academy chooses to honor something smaller and more human. We shall see.

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I’ve written a lot in this space about expectations, and the toll they can sometimes take on first impressions of new music. Well, this week I’ve got the perfect example of that point. I have an album I’ve been anticipating for months, to the point where the record in my head was totally different from the record I eventually heard. And I have an album I picked up on a whim, with no expectations whatsoever, that utterly floored me.

The spanner in the works is that both of these records are very good. And yet, it took me some time to come to grips with the first one, whereas the second knocked me out immediately and has only grown in stature since. None of this means anything to you, of course – you just want to know how the records sound. But for me, it’s taken a little while to get where I am with them.

The first is These Hopeful Machines, by BT. Start with this: Brian Transeau is a genius. I’m honestly not sure why he is not more acclaimed than he is. His first few albums are fine examples of epic trance music, all beats and bliss, but starting with 2003’s Emotional Technology, he began exploring this entirely new territory. He’s somehow found a way to write and perform moving, melodic pop songs without losing his glitchy electronic roots. And I don’t mean this in a Moby kind of way – BT albums are all the evidence I need that Moby should just hang it up.

No, I mean Transeau has perfected this synthesis between warm pop and cold dance music, and he’s used it to create sprawling, progressive masterpieces that are at once remarkably complex and wholly human. Emotional Technology is still unlike anything I’ve heard, particularly on melancholy epics like “The Force of Gravity” and “The Great Escape.” He flipped this new sound on its ear with the follow-up, the amazing This Binary Universe, which removed the vocals and unfurled his songs out past the 10-minute mark. It remains one of the best instrumental albums I own.

And I guess I was expecting Transeau to completely reinvent himself each time out, which is why These Hopeful Machines initially disappointed me. Of course, my expectations were ridiculously high – Machines is a two-disc excursion, six songs spanning 112 minutes, and I was hoping to hear sounds from BT that I’d never heard before. In fact, what he’s done here is build on his last two records, bringing them together in ways I didn’t understand my first time through. He’s also, somewhat perversely, stuck to clichéd pop song lyrics throughout, despite the extended running times and progressive detours of these songs, and that decision initially put me off as well. It’s like an even mix of the innovative and the insipid.

But give Machines time, and it will take its place as BT’s most expansive and brilliant work. Let’s first start by saying Transeau is one of the best producers walking the earth – his work is detailed to an almost ludicrous degree, each song probably requiring hundreds of tracks and millions of little edits. You can listen to a BT album 20 times and still not hear everything buried in it, and These Hopeful Machines may be his most intricate yet.

Its songs, however, are at heart little things, and that’s its secret. Opener “Suddenly” has a very simple, very effective chorus, and would be a fine three-minute pop song. Here, of course, it is an eight-minute glitch-pop masterwork, a grand statement of purpose. It’s eclipsed by track two, “The Emergency,” which starts with a ghostly piano part and builds into a 10-minute wonderama. But it pinions around a small flower of a chorus, a simple “I love you.” It’s the perfect realization of Transeau’s thesis this time out – a massive mechanical whirlygig surrounding a tiny, beating human heart.

So goes much of the rest of These Hopeful Machines, but there are some surprises along the way. Frequent BT collaborator Jes takes lead vocal duties on two tracks on disc one, and while “Every Other Way” seems to drift, the punchy “The Light in Things” is her showcase here. Transeau’s also turned in two instrumental pieces, “Rose of Jericho” and “Le Nocturne de Lumiere,” that would act as interludes if they weren’t so fully realized. And he brings a live band feel to “Love Can Kill You,” and to his closing cover of the Psychedelic Furs’ “The Ghost in You.” (Recorded on analog tape, believe it or not.)

I have saved the best for last, however. Transeau has also enlisted Rob Dickinson, the singer and songwriter of Catherine Wheel, to grace two songs. “Always” is a nice number, sounding like a remix of something that could have fit on Happy Days or Wishville. But the 10-minute “The Unbreakable” is the best thing here, a sustained joyous shout over blipping synths and delirious sounds, Dickinson bringing the whole thing home. It’s an absolute wonder of a track, and sequenced 11th out of 12, it serves as the natural climax of the record.

These Hopeful Machines is the biggest and boldest statement Transeau has made. The trite lyrics and pure pop choruses will turn off electronic music purists, while the elongated song lengths and stuttering production will try the patience of pop fans. This album is for neither. It’s for people who are willing to follow Transeau down this new path, towards this exciting synthesis he’s aiming for. Machines is a stunning web of sound, mixing the mechanical and the organic with remarkable clarity. It is, in nearly every way, BT’s masterpiece.

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The other album is Corinne Bailey Rae’s The Sea. Rae is one of those artists whose work was just kind of there for me. It exists, it blends in with the background noise, and I barely even notice it. “Put Your Records On” is a nice song, and Rae has a great jazzy voice. But I didn’t expect great things, and I probably wouldn’t have even bought The Sea if not for a raving write-up I saw online.

But damn, I’m glad I did.

The Sea is Rae’s first album since losing her husband, Jason, who died of a suspected drug overdose nearly two years ago. Some say that the best art comes from tragedy, and I believe them. I would never want anyone to go through what Rae has in the last two years, but out of her pain, she has crafted a gorgeous record of deep folk-soul, a moving and surprisingly fun album that should plant her firmly amongst the best purveyors of this sound.

But it’s more than that. The Sea is an emotional gut-punch, a bottomless well of despair and hope in equal measure. Opener “Are You Here” brings it right up front – a collection of memories, of love in days gone by, her voice floating over acoustic guitars and horns. “I’d Do It All Again” and the striking “Feels Like the First Time” are more experiments in time travel, Rae using memory to heal, and by the end of the third song, she’s singing her little heart out over rat-a-tat drums and jazzy piano. It’s an opening trilogy that holds together like a single piece.

On half of this record, Rae indulges her rock side more than ever. “The Blackest Lily” just… well, it rocks, all bass and kickass organ. Both “Paris Nights/New York Mornings” and “Paper Doll” should put paid to any notions that Rae has made a depressing record here. “Closer” is the hit, slinky and horn-driven, like the best of Billie Holliday. Those scouring the lyrics of these songs for hints to Rae’s mental state will probably come away disappointed – they are pure pop wonders, and Rae sings the living hell out of them.

But the album’s other half is its heart. “Love’s On the Way” finds Rae contemplating just how to use her pain and love to improve the world, and contains the album’s most indelible, wonderful chorus. (And some of its most elastic bass playing.) “I Would Like to Call It Beauty” takes her tragedy head-on, opening with the line “So young for death” and exploring just how difficult it’s been for her to find her joy again. “Strained as love’s become, it still amazes me,” she sings, over strummed acoustics and lovely strings.

On “Diving for Hearts,” Rae questions just how deep she has to go to heal. And the closing title track finds her surfacing again, and contemplating how easily everything washes away – even crushing pain. “The sea, the majestic sea, breaks everything, crushes everything, cleans everything, takes everything away from me,” she sings, in what is the record’s most sad and gorgeous moment.

Needless to say, Corinne Bailey Rae’s music is far more than just background to me now. The Sea is a wonderful album, one that hurts in all the best ways. It’s the kind of soulful dive into truth that you just don’t hear much anymore. In a pop music landscape littered with singers with less than half of Rae’s skill, she could simply coast on her pipes and make a mint. That she’s chosen to write songs of such power and grace speaks volumes about her as an artist. The Sea is a remarkable work, an honest and clear statement from a singer-songwriter swimming through pain, striding onto the shore, and coming into her own.

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And now, the next installment in my Top 20 Albums of the Decade. This one might surprise you.

#16. Aqualung, Memory Man (2007).

It would be easy to lump Matt Hales’ Aqualung project in with all the other shaky-voiced piano-driven Brit-pop that has cropped up in Coldplay’s wake. Unfortunately, I think that’s what American audiences have done, since Hales hasn’t had the same level of success as some of his contemporaries. Part of it might be that he’s chosen an awful, awful name for his project, one that brings Jethro Tull to mind more often than not. Part of it might be that he hasn’t enjoyed a strong push from his label.

None of it, however, is the music. Matt Hales is an extraordinary songwriter, but he’s also an equally gifted record-maker. Memory Man was our first taste of that side of his talents here in America – its predecessor, Strange and Beautiful, was a compilation of tracks from his first two U.K. albums. Turns out, a full Aqualung album is an amazing thing. This is Hales’ attempt to make a big-budget spectacular, a finely-detailed widescreen pop record, and he approached it as a unified whole. Memory Man carries you through from one end to the other.

But it’s the songs – oh man, these songs. Opener “Cinderella” is astonishing, beginning with a plinking piano before exploding with Radiohead-like drums and guitars, and a full horn section. The whole song starts and stops like this, sometimes including nothing but drums and Hales’ voice, sometimes containing so much sound it feels like the world will burst. One section floats on nothing but a mournful French horn and a couple of soaring, operatic female voices. Through it all, the melody remains impeccable.

Over the next 10 songs, whether Hales is pleading to the heavens on the pounding “Something to Believe In,” channeling Motown on “Rolls So Deep,” or watching the sun rise on “Glimmer,” he never falters. “Pressure Suit” should have been a hit – its grand sci-fi lyrical conceit is set to a glittering pop gem of a melody. On the other end of the spectrum, there is “The Lake,” a haunting and spare shiver of a song. It starts with simple piano and voice, and as Hales adds dozens of flittering distractions around it, including a bass part that will rattle your walls, that basic through line remains. Hales’ voice is a quiet whimper, building to a storm.

Memory Man is an album about trying to find meaning. Its most important line comes in “Black Hole,” one of the album’s more rhythmic tracks: “If love is not the answer, maybe I misunderstood the question.” Throughout this album’s remarkably quick 50 minutes, Hales turns over every rock he can find, looking for hope and purpose. His lyrics easily support the grandiose music he has composed for them. Where his previous (and, to be honest, subsequent) works have merely been pretty, Memory Man digs deep, and gets loud when necessary – the coda of “Black Hole,” leading into the bright blur of “Outside,” is one of the most surprising moments here.

He saves his best, most poignant songs for last. “Garden of Love” is a tender epic, Hales inviting Paul Buchanan of the Blue Nile (a clear influence) to sing the second half. It’s a song with peaks and valleys, effortlessly tugging at the heartstrings.

But it’s the closer, “Broken Bones,” that takes the prize. Here Hales uses the very sound of his recording for emotional effect – he plays the song on an out-of-tune piano, and records half of it through a broken CB radio. The song is about watching one’s world disintegrate – “The world is burning and I’m terrified, I just need a little more time with you” – and the effect is unspeakably moving. Hales has found his purpose, his reason, as all else fades away.

It’s probably obvious at this point, but I think Memory Man should be hailed as one of the finest British pop albums of the modern era. That it has been largely ignored over here is… well, criminal. I’ve heard hundreds of albums from quivering British piano-poppers over the last 10 years, and none of them have stuck with me quite like this one has. It’s beautifully written, perfectly realized, and packs an unexpected emotional punch.

Of course, the very next year, Hales would go on to write his prettiest-ever song, “Arrivals,” so I expect he’ll only get better. (Aqualung’s new album, Magnetic North, is set for release in March.) How he’ll get better than this, though, is beyond me. Memory Man is that good.

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Man, that’s a lot of words. Tune in next week for reviews of a whole bunch of things, including Spoon, Midlake, Beach House, Fair, and maybe a couple of others. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’d like to begin this week with a quick post-mortem for Dollhouse, what will likely be Joss Whedon’s last network television show.

I’ve long been of the opinion that Whedon is just too good for television. He belongs on HBO, or Showtime, or at the very least FX. Cable networks that can support his talent for lengthy serial narratives that slowly and completely explore difficult themes behind the veneer of genre shows. Network television just isn’t set up for that. What the networks want is predictable, easy-to-understand concepts that find their footing early and take no chances.

Whedon just doesn’t work like that. Of his four shows, only Firefly was on full power right out of the gate. The rest built their epic storylines slowly, holding their ideas under as many different lights as possible. Early Buffy the Vampire Slayer is perfectly fine, fun television, but it’s hard to sit through, knowing how extraordinary the show becomes later. The first season of Angel is a slow-moving nightmare, but from there, it unfolds brilliantly into a blood-soaked meditation on redemption.

In many ways, Dollhouse is Whedon’s most complex show, and in the end, it only got 26 episodes to prove its worth. The premise is bursting with possibility – the Dollhouse is an organization that finds people, wipes their memories and personalities, then imprints them with the memories and personalities of others. They then hire out these “dolls” to people who can pay for them (and not just for sex), and when their missions are over, they return to their childlike, mind-wiped state.

Of course, the central question of the show is, “Who are we?” Are we the sum of our memories, or do our essential beings run deeper? To his credit, Whedon never shied away from the grisly moral implications of the Dollhouse, and presented us with a thorny, tangled web of dark themes. The concept, and Whedon’s treatment of it, were never the problem. But Dollhouse suffered and eventually succumbed to a failure of execution, brought on mainly by the network that aired it, good old Fox.

Now, I recently re-watched those first five episodes, and they’re not as bad as I remembered. (Okay, “Stage Fright” is pretty damn bad.) But they certainly didn’t kick-start the story in any meaningful way. It’s common knowledge that the done-in-one format of the first five episodes was imposed upon Whedon by Fox, and that’s five fewer episodes he and his team had to tell the real story. And it’s a fantastic story, spinning the idea of the Dollhouse out to a global scale.

Naturally, with only 13 episodes to spin what should have been five full seasons of plotline, the second season feels rushed. The amazing thing is that for the vast majority of its running time, the quicker pace actually helps the show immeasurably. We get one slam-bang revelation after another in season two, and watching it all in a row will probably be like riding a particularly bendy roller coaster. But then, two episodes from the end, the writers piled up one twist too many without enough time to explain or explore it, and the show kind of deraied.

Not entirely, mind you. But the last two episodes of Dollhouse feel like three years of story compressed to 90 minutes. Thankfully, the final episode (which aired Friday) works pretty well, and the show goes out on a hopeful note, but the last few hours of Dollhouse are messy, unkempt things that race headlong to a conclusion, rather than telling a thoroughly satisfying tale. What’s there is full of potential, and makes the best of a lousy situation, but I can only imagine just how good a five-season Dollhouse might have been.

I can’t blame Fox entirely. They did renew the show for a second season, after the first pulled in dismal ratings. But I honestly can’t imagine Whedon going back to them, or any network, with another idea – particularly an idea as complex as Dollhouse. I hope the next time we see him, Whedon will be helming a show on HBO, or even online, Dr. Horrible style. As for Dollhouse, it’s very much worth seeing, if only to further demonstrate just how talented and imaginative its creator is.

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Two years ago last month, Stephin Merritt and his Magnetic Fields made the first great album of 2008 with Distortion. They’re a couple weeks late for that this year – OK Go stole the crown – but their new album Realism is another early favorite in a first quarter chock full of them.

I mention both records because they’re fraternal twins, a matched set. Distortion’s cover is the “gentlemen” lavatory symbol, while Realism’s is the “ladies” icon. The designs are identical, down to the smallest detail. And the albums are mirror images of each other – where Distortion is loud and sloppy and electronic-sounding, Realism is hushed and graceful and performed entirely on acoustic instruments. But other than that, it’s exactly the same – another collection of 13 wonderful Stephin Merritt songs.

Granted, the tone of Realism takes some getting used to. It’s closer to some of Merritt’s older work than Distortion was, but it’s still an album without drums, one which takes some florid and baroque detours. It’s acoustic, but it’s never strummed singer-songwriter stuff. The album is packed with sonic colors, including flugelhorn, tuba, cello, accordion, banjo, hammered dulcimer, zither and sitar. The vocals are often in three-part harmony, like an old-time campfire singing group, but the sound of the album is clean and modern.

But just like Distortion took a few listens to hear past the sheets of noise, Realism takes flight with repeated plays. The key, of course, is Merritt’s fantastic songs, each one a quirky gem. The record opens with its catchiest, “You Must Be Out of Your Mind,” a delightful kiss-off to an old flame looking to light the match again. “You can’t just go ‘round saying stuff because it’s pretty,” Merritt and his cohorts sing. “And I’m no longer drunk enough to think you’re witty…”

The album immediately gets darker and deeper from there. The whispered ballet “Interlude” would sound at home on Merritt’s Showtunes collection, singer Claudia Gonson lamenting a poor lovestruck fool. “I Don’t Know What to Say” finds Merritt running through the possible one-liners that could make the love of his life stick around, over a tune straight out of the sadder moments on Pet Sounds. And “Walk a Lonely Road” winds its melancholy melody around the tale of two loners finding one another: “Walk a lonely road with me, I will walk with you, half as lonely we will be when we walk as two…”

Of course, then there is “We Are Having a Hootenanny,” a hayseed hoo-rah on which the Fields offer you a personality quiz before encouraging you to “do-si-do down to our hoedown.” “Everything is One Big Christmas Tree” is a galloping delight, with two laugh-out-loud lines (one: “If they don’t like you, screw them, don’t leave your fortune to them”), and a verse in German. And “The Dada Polka” does what it says on the tin – its jaunty refrain is “Do something, anything, do something please.”

All of this and more in 33 minutes. One thing stays consistent – whether Merritt is telling sad stories or spinning delirious dance numbers, he never skimps on the melody. These are meticulously crafted, beautiful songs, and the acoustic instrumentation makes them sound like they’re being sculpted out of the air. He even makes “Seduced and Abandoned,” a story of a new mother left on her wedding day, into something that will get stuck in your head. Particularly the laughing-gasping final lines, “I think I might drink a few, and maybe the baby will too…”

Beyond all of its sonic exploration, Realism is just 13 more reasons to love Stephin Merritt. He’s a classic songwriter, one with wit and verve and unfailing sense of melody. You could perform the Distortion songs acoustically and cover the Realism songs in squalling feedback, and the core would remain the same. It’s all about these songs, and on Realism, they’re as good as they’ve ever been.

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And now, the fourth in a series of the Top 20 Albums of the 2000s.

#17. The Choir, O How the Mighty Have Fallen (2005).

It’s no secret that the Choir is pretty much my favorite band in the world. I’ve heard better bands, technically, but none that make my spirit soar the way the Choir does. I’ve been into them since 1990, when I bought their masterpiece, Circle Slide, based solely on the cover art. It was one of the best decisions, musically speaking, I’ve ever made. The Choir is a spiritual band, but their songs are full of doubts and fears, and the music is what I want all dream-pop to sound like: floating three feet off the ground, but still melodic and powerful.

So yeah, they’re my favorite band. But I can still admit when they fall down. Their post-Circle Slide output has been decent, from the amps-on-11 rock of Speckled Bird to the odd sonic experiments of Free Flying Soul, but in 2000, they released Flap Your Wings, a half-hearted collection that has been gathering dust since I bought it. It was the first new Choir album I’d struggled with, and I finally realized I just didn’t like it very much. When your favorite band makes a bad album, it’s difficult enough, but when they only release a new one every four years, on average, it hurts.

When 2005 rolled around, and word of a new Choir album started to trickle out, I didn’t know how to feel. For the first time, I approached the news with some worry. A healthy measure of excitement, sure, but a fair amount of trepidation as well. The title didn’t help me much. O How the Mighty Have Fallen. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one.

Oh me of little faith. One listen through and I was grinning. Two and I was giddy.

Mighty is a classic Choir album, a late-career renaissance. This is the one on which they found the perfect balance between their atmospheric swirly-guitar past and the driving rock they’d been doing of late. A big part of the credit must go to Hammock guitarist Marc Byrd, who painted this canvas with glorious swaths of shimmering sound, but Choir mainstays Derri Daughtery and Steve Hindalong stepped up their game immeasurably, and bass god Tim Chandler and sax man Dan Michaels turned in some terrific work. It’s only 10 songs, but all 10 songs are marvelous, and pound for pound, this is the best (and best-sounding) Choir album since Circle Slide.

But it’s more than that to me. Mighty is an album that fills me with joy, and at times, unspeakable melancholy. Part of that is, undoubtedly, a by-product of my 20-year fandom. “Fine Fun Time” invites me to reminisce about my years listening to this band, and knowing that “Terrible Mystery” is about Daugherty’s painful divorce gives it an extra dimension. But most of it is just because the Choir, when they are on, can craft music that digs deep, that touches the soul.

Just listen to “How I Wish I Knew,” a sad lullaby about the confusion and longing of fatherhood, and try not to be moved. Then take in “Mercy Will Prevail,” this album’s dark epic (at only 3:38). As reverbed guitars crash about, Daugherty, his voice an innocent babe in these woods, expresses his doubt about a God of love. “I want to swear it’s true but it’s hard to believe it,” he sings, before explaining all the things that give him pause: “In the thrust of a bayonet, in the hour of deep regret, in a world gone insane, in the eye of a hurricane…”

It’s this dark spirituality that gives added weight to the closing track, “To Rescue Me.” Daugherty and Hindalong have tried their hand at hymns before, but this is the one they got absolutely right. It’s a simple declaration of broken desperation, performed with subtle grace. I know many people who are turned off by even the slightest mention of Christian beliefs in song, and most say they don’t like to be preached at. The Choir would never stoop so low. “To Rescue Me” is entirely about how they need saving, and how grateful they are for that salvation. It may be the prettiest song they’ve ever written.

O How the Mighty Have Fallen is an album only a few thousand people have ever heard. Arguing for its placement on this list as an important record is a difficult prospect, however I feel about it. But it is a great one, a pop album of transcendent beauty, and in my little world, it was perhaps the most important record of the last 10 years. It was the album that restored my faith in my favorite band, and five years later, it’s lost none of its magic.

And get this: the Choir’s making another one as we speak. Life is impossibly good.

If you’ve never heard the Choir, go here.

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I still haven’t seen the Lost premiere – I had to cover an election, and didn’t get home until midnight or so. I’ll probably have some thoughts (of the non-spoilery variety) next week. Also, BT returns with nearly two hours of glitchy goodness, featuring Rob Dickinson (of Catherine Wheel) on two tracks. Who says this isn’t the Marvel age of musical magnificence?

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.