Well, hello again.

This is TM3AM column #501. Not nearly as momentous as last week, more like business as usual. Thanks to everyone for your kind comments on my 500th. I got a remarkable 1,000 page views last Wednesday alone. I truly appreciate everyone who stopped by to read my stuff, and I hope some of you came back this week to see what this thing is all about.

If you’re new, welcome aboard. This installment is pretty much what you’ll get every week here – a bunch of reviews of new music, of all stripes. We’ve got progressive metal, earthy blues, orchestrated show tunes and whatever it is the Eels do on tap this week, and we’re starting things off with a genuine week-making surprise.

Again, thanks for stopping by my corner of the internet, and reading my labor of love. Here we go.

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Anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to music, I’m a bit of a Luddite. I resisted CDs for a good long time, longer than reason would suggest, and now, as everyone is moving to digital delivery and selling their plastic discs to second-hand shops, I’m clinging to the physical era, shelling out for hundreds of the singing drink coasters each year. I’m one of those people who feel like I don’t really own an album unless I can hold it in my hand.

But one thing the Internet does better than anything is surprise. It takes weeks, sometimes months for a finished album to make it to the stores – there’s artwork and printing and manufacturing and distribution, and all of that takes a long time. But with digital delivery, an artist can finish a record and have it up for sale the same afternoon. If said artist wants to, he can even do all that without telling anyone first.

Enter Sufjan Stevens, who released, without warning, an hour-long EP of new songs on his website Friday morning. It was a surprise for a number of reasons. First, Stevens has been talking for some time about how mentally blocked he is, saying he’s forgotten how to write songs. The last piece of music we heard from him was The BQE, an orchestral ode to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. A sterling 40-minute piece, The BQE reportedly messed with Stevens’ head – it was such an ordeal, he said, that he doubted whether he’d ever write another song again.

Another reason for surprise: Stevens rarely does anything small, or without fanfare. This is the man, after all, who made the best album of the last decade, a 74-minute ode to my adopted home state, Illinois. That album is part of a (presumably aborted) attempt to write one album for each of the 50 states, an undertaking several have rightly called insane. Hell, even his Christmas album was a five-CD box set. Stevens is nothing if not ambitious, almost to a fault.

So now here’s this eight-song collection, All Delighted People, his first without a concept behind it since 2004’s Seven Swans, appearing like a thief in the night. Is this the true follow-up to Illinois? Stevens is downplaying that idea, calling it an EP and selling it for five bucks. But I would say it is, or at least the next step in Stevens’ evolution. All Delighted People requires a few listens to truly process, but once it takes hold, it’s an amazing piece of work.

The album is built around two epics, one of which, the title track, appears in two versions. The “original version” kicks things off, and right away, you can hear the difference in Stevens’ approach. The song is 11 minutes long, doesn’t have a chorus as much as it has a nine-note refrain, and is arranged for something like 350 players. On first listen, it’s baffling – it winds on and on, Stevens dropping Paul Simon lyrics in among his own, as the massive waves of sound build up, break and recede. Huge walls of strings and horns, choirs, electronic noise, crazy dissonance – it all makes no sense at first, but over time, the gears lock into place.

Stevens’ voice is very different here as well. He’s grown more confident, and mixed himself right up front. His vocals have grown thicker and gruffer, and he pushes himself, often leaping into a shaky falsetto. I’m still not sure what I think of his new tone, and at first, it’s just as jarring as the crazy arrangements. Needless to say, by the time I finished “All Delighted People” the first time, my head was spinning. But upon hearing the cleaner, sparser “classic rock version,” here at track six, the song started to come together for me.

Now, five listens later, I think it’s something of a masterpiece, in both versions. The classic rock version is closer to his Illinois style, although it’s still grittier, and it ends with a three-minute guitar solo that keeps eating itself. As you start to learn its contours, the song doesn’t meander nearly as much as it first seems to, and its internal logic clicks. I think this can stand as one of Stevens’ most impressive efforts.

The remainder of the EP isn’t as immediately off-putting. In fact, it’s marvelous, although Stevens retains the loose and rough-hewn style – you never get the sense here that he’s completely in control of things, which is a huge change from Illinois. “Enchanting Ghost” and “Heirloom” are acoustic pieces with tender piano, and both are lovely. “From the Mouth of Gabriel” takes things up a notch, kind of – it pulses along nicely, growing as it does, but never too much.

The fifth track, “The Owl and the Tanager,” is a concert favorite, one he’s played since at least 2007. The version here is jaw-droppingly beautiful, all piano and echo-y voice, Stevens reaching up for that falsetto again, but truly nailing it. This one sounds to me like a sonic sequel to “Oh God, Where Are You Now,” its repetition taking it to hypnotic heights. “Arnika” is another acoustic tune, this one buoyed by a subtle choir arrangement, and structured in a way that makes it sound ready to collapse at any time. It’s odd, but gorgeous.

And then there’s the finale, the other epic – “Djohariah” runs for 17 minutes, and remains almost entirely instrumental for the first 11 of them. As backing vocalists moan, and a very 1970s bass thumps away, Stevens whips out a positively Zappa-esque guitar solo. Honestly, the man shreds – I’ve never heard him play like this before. The whole song is an exercise in letting loose, despite its slow tempo. Horns wail, drums flail, the song builds and builds, until it all falls away, leaving Stevens and his acoustic. That is, until the electronic drums come in, and the low-moan backing vocals return. As a whole, “Djohariah” is unlike anything Stevens has ever done, and though it goes on a touch too long, it’s a masterful experiment.

I’ll admit, I was worried. Sufjan Stevens performed a musical miracle with Illinois, and given some of his public statements over the past few months, I was worried he’d never even try to follow it up. All Delighted People has set my mind at ease. Rather than creating a carbon copy of Illinois or flying off in some uncharted direction, Stevens simply took his next step. I’m still absorbing All Delighted People, but as for now, Stevens can count me as one of them.

This is well worth your five bucks. Get it here.

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I’m a very loyal music fan.

If I like your stuff, I’ll follow you, no matter what you put out. I’ll buy your Europe-only live album, your three-CD rarities collection, your demos that sound exactly the same as your album versions. What’s more, I’m such an anal-retentive completist that once I decide I’m on board with a band, I have to have everything, and I’ll stick around to hear the end of the story.

This even applies to bands I liked when I was a teenager. I’ll keep on listening long after many have given up, in the hopes that I’ll hear something wonderful. Sometimes it works: I’ve kept up with Tesla, and their last two albums were pretty good. I’ve bought every Enuff Z’Nuff album, and never regretted it once. And had I never listened to Winger as a young metalhead, I’d probably never have heard Kip Winger’s terrific solo material. Sure, sometimes it doesn’t pan out – I could probably have lived without the last Faster Pussycat disc – but I soldier on.

No band has made it easier for me than Iron Maiden. I’ve been a fan my whole life, it seems – in truth, the first full album I heard was probably 1985’s Powerslave – and while I’d have gladly signed on for album after album of slow decline, happy to root around for the good stuff, Maiden has surprised me by getting better and better in their latter years. Sure, we had that Blaze Bayley fiasco in the ‘90s, but since Bruce Dickinson rejoined the fold in 2000, it’s been one killer album after another.

Now here’s the fourth post-reunion disc (and 15th overall), The Final Frontier, and the string remains unbroken. Iron Maiden is the original operatic rock band, embracing its own ridiculousness with deadpan seriousness while ripping out jackhammer riffs and over-the-top guitar solos, but somehow, as the boys have grown older, the band has matured. They still rock like a house on fire, and their songs still stretch to epic lengths, but modern Maiden, even more than the classic ‘80s material, commands respect.

Here’s the thing: these guys have been around for 35 years now. They have a huge, dedicated fanbase all over the world. They don’t need to try as hard as they do – they could easily coast by, playing “The Trooper” and “Aces High” to screaming fans for the rest of their lives. But each new Maiden album feels like a concentrated attempt to outdo the last, and give the fans something special. And they bring it live too. I saw Maiden last month at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheater in Tinley Park (which they sold out), and they played for two solid hours, Dickinson running and jumping like a madman the entire time. They could have phoned it in and the audience would have still gone home happy, but they keep pushing themselves, even at this late stage of their career.

How about the new record? It kills. At 76 minutes, it’s the longest in the Maiden catalog, and while the first half is full of sharp ass-kickers, the second is all complex, glorious epics. The weakest songs are all up front: percussive dirge “Satellite 15” goes on a little long, the title track is a bit repetitive, and “El Dorado” gets too much mileage out of its Motorhead-style riff. But you know, I say “weakest,” but these songs are all still fantastic, particularly “El Dorado,” which rocked live.

From there, we’re off to the races, and there isn’t a moment that doesn’t make me proud to be a Maiden fan. “Mother of Mercy” and “Coming Home” are both classic, powerful mid-tempo numbers, the old-school “The Alchemist” is all kinds of triple-guitar awesome, and the monolithic suites in the second half are all superb. I’m particularly happy with the nine-minute “The Talisman,” which starts with quiet acoustics, explodes around the two-minute mark, and never comes back down. This song has so many magical melodic moments, and Dickinson is just awe-inspiring throughout. More than three decades after he first took the stage, the little man with the big voice remains one of the best singers in metal.

The Final Frontier closes with its finest track, the 11-minute “When the Wild Wind Blows.” It’s also one of the best epics the band has ever written, moving deftly from section to section, from quiet to loud to anthemic and back. The song tells the tale of two lovers who mistake an earthquake for a nuclear strike, and kill themselves: “When they found them they had their arms around each other, their tins of poison laying nearby their clothes…” The song is intricate and captivating – as I said, I’ve been a Maiden fan most of my life, and they’ve rarely been better than this.

All of which leads to the $25,000 question – how long can they keep this up? Few bands have sustained a late-career renaissance like Iron Maiden has, but the band members are all in their 50s, and each record from here on out could very well be the last. The band certainly fueled those rumors by naming this album The Final Frontier, which they’ve acknowledged with a wink. Let me say this, then: I have no idea if this is the last Maiden album, but if it is, it’s a hell of a way to go out. The Final Frontier is right up there with Maiden’s best, and a sign that even 35 years into their career, they’re still in a class by themselves.

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Ray LaMontagne is from Maine, my old stomping grounds. Maine’s a tough place to live year-round – it gets damn cold, and the snow falls from October to May. You get a little rough around the edges, living through that year after year, and in some Mainers, you can hear the decades of cold air in their voices.

LaMontagne has one of those voices. It’s world-weary, rough-hewn and raspy, and carries great weight with it. But somehow, LaMontagne is also able to shape that voice into something silky and smooth when he needs to. It’s an incredible instrument – you don’t notice how special it is at first, but listen deeper, and it reveals itself. Over three albums of songs ranging from skeletal folk to hugely-orchestrated balladry, LaMontagne has become one of my favorite singers. And I’d say that even if he weren’t from my neck of the woods.

His fourth, God Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise, does nothing to change that opinion. It’s the first credited to both LaMontagne and his band, the Pariah Dogs, and it has an earthy, rustic feel to it, like the five of them got together in a barn and recorded live. The Pariah Dogs include guitarists Greg Liesz and Eric Heywood, bassist Jennifer Condos, and drummer Jay Bellerose, all of whom have been playing this kind of thing for more than a decade. (Just the list of recordings Liesz has contributed to would fill the rest of this column.) These guys are good, and LaMontagne rises to the challenge admirably.

Opener “Repo Man” is a slinky slab of acoustic funk-blues, but most of God Willin’ stays with the slow and melancholy. “New York City’s Killin’ Me” is the kind of song country radio doesn’t play anymore, but should. The title track is an absolute heartbreaker, LaMontagne giving the lyric every ounce of loneliness he has: “I close my eyes and I can see you, I close my eyes and I can feel you here, God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, I’ll be home again before this time next year…”

LaMontagne breaks out a Sade-style beat for “This Love is Over,” a song that finds him exploring his breathy upper register, to grand effect. “For the Summer” is an absolutely gorgeous minor-key country-folk number, with a chorus that’ll lay you flat. LaMontagne goes it alone for the dark delight “Like Rock & Roll and Radio,” a song of separation with a great metaphor at its center. (“Are we strangers now, like rock & roll and the radio?”) The band comes charging back in for closing stomper “Devil’s in the Jukebox,” a traditional blues that ends things on just the right note.

Yep, it’s another 10 great little tunes from one of my favorite singers. If you liked Ray LaMontagne before, there’s no reason you won’t like this. God Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise is a down-home slice of dusty beauty from a truly awesome talent. Voices like Ray’s are one in a million, and he knows just how to write for his. Make a former Mainer’s day and check this out.

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I’m tired of fighting it. I love the Eels.

It’s been a struggle, and there are a few reasons why. Eels leader Mark Everett writes very simple songs, with very simple lyrics – often straight diary entries with fourth-grade-level rhymes. Everett has a limited voice, and doesn’t really push it, except to bark his way through loud blues tunes. I guess I’ve often felt like Everett doesn’t try very hard, and I’ve felt a little ashamed for liking his stuff anyway.

But I’m over it. I’ve been buying Everett’s records since the early ‘90s, and it’s taken me too long to realize I’ve enjoyed every one. What’s really driven this home? The trilogy of fine pop albums he’s just finished up: 2009’s Hombre Lobo, January’s End Times, and the just-released Tomorrow Morning. Three albums in 18 months, each one different from the last, every one a winner.

These three records detail Everett’s reaction to his recent divorce, and they break down into anger, sadness and joy, respectively. Tomorrow Morning is the emotional flip side to End Times, which found Everett wallowing in loneliness and heartbreak, accompanied often by little more than an acoustic guitar. He’s flush with new love on this new one, and it’s the first Eels album that’s optimistic and wide-hearted from first note to last. I’m not certain if this means he’s over his old love, or just remembering when things were good, but the fact Everett chose to end the trilogy with this one gives me a hint.

But even as a standalone piece, this album is wonderful. It sounds to me like Everett did most of this one himself, breaking out the drum machines and synths for the first time in a while. The first three songs eschew beats entirely, but they’re not sad dirges. Everett describes himself as “beautiful and free” on “I’m a Hummingbird,” and “The Morning” ends with this sentiment: “Why wouldn’t you want to have the greatest day?” “Baby Loves Me” is an undiluted delight, a sort of inverse blues song with a trippy beat. “The neighbors don’t like my flowers, the waiter don’t like my tip, the librarian shushes me, travel agent canceled my trip, but baby loves me…”

The album’s centerpiece is the six-minute “This is Where it Gets Good,” which finds Everett layering a distant string section over a thumping beat and a funky little guitar line. The extended playout is just great, the first time we’ve heard from Everett the sonic manipulator in some time. It’s just joyous, and while you may spend the album’s second half waiting for the other shoe to drop, it never does. “The Man” is a fantasia of confidence, and songs with titles like “Looking Up” and “I Like the Way This is Going” are exactly as breezy as you expect. “Looking Up” is a genuine surprise, an old-time gospel number, complete with ringing tambourine and handclaps.

The album ends with “Mystery of Life,” a song that truly explores Everett’s emotional journey. “Pain in my heart twisting like a knife, disappeared just overnight, good morning, mystery of life,” he sings over a slightly spooky bass line, before the song bursts into a chorus of bright na-na-nas. Everett rhymes “life” with “strife,” something that usually makes me shiver, but I don’t care. It’s impossible to resist something this delightful, and I’m not sure why I tried for so long. Tomorrow Morning is wonderful. I’m an Eels fan, and I guess I’ll just have to live with that.

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Which brings us to Brian Wilson.

Wilson is 68 years old now, and there isn’t an artist alive who makes me feel so young. It wouldn’t be inaccurate to call what he does children’s music – in many ways, he’s a grown-up man-child, still playing in that sandbox in his living room. Wilson’s work has always been so innocent and full of wonder, and all of his musical sophistication is always in service of pure, child-like joy. Some find this cloying, even saccharine. I don’t hear an ounce of dishonesty in what he does, though. I think it’s just lovely.

Even so, I wasn’t sure I would like Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin, his latest effort. I know Wilson has always had a great love for George Gershwin, particularly “Rhapsody in Blue” – he’s said before that his first musical memory is of that piece. I knew he would relish the opportunity to reinvent some of Gershwin’s best and most popular songs, most of which George wrote with his older brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin. And yet, I felt like this would be another stopgap, like that Christmas album Wilson made after SMiLE. I buy these things out of obligation, because Brian Wilson is a living legend and a genius, but I don’t always enjoy them.

I enjoyed this one, very much. Granted, if you don’t like Gershwin, you won’t find much to enjoy here. My extensive exposure to musical theater really helped out – there’s only one song on here I didn’t know, and many I knew by heart. Virtually all of these songs were first written for musicals, both on stage and in the movies, and they have that silly romantic sweep to them, which turns off a lot of people. (Myself included, pretty often.) The melodies, however, are marvelous, and there’s nothing like a Brian Wilson arrangement to perk my ears up.

There are some highs and lows here. The samba take on “‘S Wonderful” is definitely a low, until those candy-coated strings come in. But Beach Boys-esque runs through “I Got Rhythm” and (especially) “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” are fun, and Wilson’s gorgeous reading of “Someone to Watch Over Me” is a highlight. He essentially turns it into “You Still Believe in Me,” complete with harpsichord and swell backing vocals. The album’s centerpiece is a four-song medley from Porgy and Bess, including a string-laden blues version of “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and an instrumental shimmy through “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin,” played on harmonicas, Jew’s harps and muted trumpet.

But the draw here is undoubtedly the two new songs, unfinished Gershwin numbers that Wilson was given permission to complete. Closer “Nothing but Love” is a fine, fun romp, but the keeper (and the best song on the album) is opener “The Like in I Love You.” This is a classic, with a delirious Wilson melody and a delightful arrangement. I know this song is cheesy and child-like, but it sweeps me away. There’s nothing I can do. I’m six years old, hearing the possibilities in music for the first time, and I love it. I’m completely disarmed.

Do I think this is up there with SMiLE and That Lucky Old Sun? No way. But Brian Wilson clearly gave this project his all – it’s a labor of love if I ever heard one. As much as I’d like to hear new Wilson songs, especially as he grows older, I’ll take a record that retains his inimitable stamp, especially one he obviously poured his heart into. I was leery, but Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin won me over. Okay, I’ll say it: ‘s wonderful.

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Wow, lots of words this week. I’ll shut up now, except to tell you that next week, I expect to review Richard Thompson, Phil Selway, Jenny and Johnny (Lewis and Rice, respectively), and maybe one or two other things. That is, unless another artist I love drops an album by complete surprise. You never know what can happen. Come back in seven days to find out.

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.

This is my 500th Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. column.

Well, not really. I’m not counting the first iteration, which appeared bi-weekly in Face Magazine in 1999 and 2000. I did 50 or so of those. And I’m not counting several extra columns, like the Lost essay, that I’ve done for this site. But I’ve been keeping count of the regular weekly missives, and between November 29, 2000, and August 18, 2010, I’ve written 500 of them.

Yeah, I know. It kind of amazes me, too.

Sometimes it feels like an entire lifetime has passed – I feel like a completely different person than the one who first bitched about the quality of 2000’s music and gave big ups to Everclear, and my life has changed in ways both small and significant since then. But sometimes I feel like the same eccentric music nerd I’ve always been, spending huge amounts of money and time on this thing that makes me happier than anything else. I started the first Face Magazine edition of this column by quoting Frank Zappa: “Music is the best.” It’s still true for me.

I still get excited over new songs like a three-year-old at Christmas. I’m not sure how the people in my life put up with me – I know my exuberance can be annoying. But hearing a song in which everything comes together, and my spine tingles and that big, goofy grin spreads across my face, well, there’s just nothing better. I own probably 200,000 songs at this point, and the good ones still make me smile, make me dance, make me love life. The ones that really stick, the songs I’ve carried with me through years and states and jobs and relationships, those are the ones I treasure most.

A 500th column is one of those “look back on your life” kind of occasions, and I’ve been thinking a lot, not only about the music I love, but about the people I’ve met through that love. There are so many amazing people in my life that I never would have met if not for my fascination with all things musical. One who immediately springs to mind is Dr. Tony Shore, who runs ObviousPop. I’ve met the good Doctor in person only twice, and stayed at his house once, but I hang on his every recommendation, and when we get to talk music, I cherish those conversations.

I started thinking about the first person I met through music, and it was probably Chris Callaway.

Granted, we probably would have met each other anyway. Our parents went to the same church, and we were in all the same Sunday school classes. But Chris and I bonded over our shared love of incredibly crappy Christian music. Well, sort of – he was into bands like Jerusalem, and I, as a socially-inept sixth-grader, really liked Petra. I made fun of some of Chris’ favorites, but without him, I might not have discovered one of my favorite bands of all time, the Alarm. Chris loaned me his cassette copy of Eye of the Hurricane when we were both 13, and I never looked back. I had to have everything this band had ever done.

Chris and I were in an amazingly awful Christian band together in junior high school. It was called M.D., which sometimes stood for Ministry of Deliverance and sometimes Missing a Drummer, since we used my crappy keyboard’s programmed drum patterns. (To our detractors, we were Masturbating Dickheads, a much better suggestion than any I’ve come up with.) Chris played bass, I played keys, we both sang. If I recall correctly, Chris was our original lead singer, and he took up bass as a secondary thing.

But he stuck with it. Last time I saw Chris was five years ago, when we journeyed to Cornerstone together. He lives in Colorado now, and he’s in a new band called Able Archer, named (I presume) after the code for war games NATO played in the ‘80s. Chris never fails to send me the latest Able Archer product, and I never fail to put off listening to it, because I’m a lazy prick. But I’ve been spinning the latest, a four-song EP called Arc 01, pretty regularly for the past couple of weeks, and I think it’s marvelous.

One thing in its favor – none of these four songs sound alike. Opener “In Support of the Steady State Theory” is a madcap, groove-laden romp, the twin guitars of Matt Huseman and Chad Lindberg zipping through a killer little riff. It’s a first-rate production, too, with something to catch your ear every few seconds. Best of all is a section where everything drops out except Huseman’s voice, singing the melody before la-da-da-ing the main riff. The lyrics appear to outdo Andy Partridge’s “We’re All Light,” using scientific theory as pickup lines. The chorus is remarkably straightforward: “I want to make it with you.”

“Mouthful of Knives” is my favorite, an electric-piano lullaby that cribs its sound and scope from OK Computer, while “Currency” brings things down to earth with an appealing college-rock vibe. Closer “A List of My Demands” brings in more of an electronic element, balanced off by more quirky guitar work and a nice falsetto melody. These four songs are apparently the first taster of a full-length called Today We Are Faster Than Technology, and I’m looking forward to hearing the whole thing.

And if I hadn’t met Chris Callaway in Sunday school, and formed two bands with him (oh, yes, didn’t I mention side project Obliterator? It was at least as bad as it sounds…), I might never have heard Able Archer at all. Chris became a top-notch bass player, by the way, and I’m hoping he hits it big, so I can blackmail him with old recordings from his formative years. I never would, though, since my own contributions to those specimens are embarrassing in the extreme.

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I all but gave up making my own music some time ago, although I did stick with it for a while. I was in a vulgar band called Replacement Harry and the Losers’ Club in high school, I wrote a musical in college, and I made hours upon hours of instrumental electronic frippery after that. No, you can’t hear any of it. I wrote songs for both of my parents’ weddings, and new songs keep threatening to come out every once in a while, but I’ve discovered I’m most comfortable as an appreciator and commenter.

My first (and so far, only) full-time paying gig as a music reviewer was with Face Magazine in Portland, Maine, from 1996 to 2000. Face was like a whole new world opening up in front of me. The Portland music scene was the first one I really got to know, and I found it to be remarkably rich and varied. If there’s a type of music you can name, someone in Portland is doing it, and doing it very well. I’m not sure what the scene is like now, but when I was there, we had some incredible bands: Twisted Roots, Rustic Overtones, Twitchboy, the Troubles, Cerberus Shoal, Tarpigh, Gouds Thumb (and later 6gig). Just an awesome bunch.

Through Face, I met two others I’m glad to consider friends today. One is Shane Kinney, drummer extraordinaire (and owner of his own drum shop in Portsmouth now). He was in a hilarious band called Broken Clown at the time, but now he pounds skins for heavy pop group Lost on Liftoff. Their latest album is called The Brightside, and it’s pretty swell. If I know Kinney, he’s been doing the same thing I have this week: digging the new Iron Maiden album.

The other is Rob Korhonen, who was going by Rob Egbert when I met him. In the late ‘90s, he was the singer for a band called Colepitz, one of the most savage live acts I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. Rob also wrote for us at Face – he crafted a two-part story about Portland’s hardcore scene, the first part of which came complete with a photo of dozens of those musicians, designed to replicate the famous Great Day in Harlem picture. It didn’t reproduce very well, but it was a fun thing to try.

When I left Portland, I lost touch with Rob. But thanks to the magic of Facebook, we’ve reconnected, and I got to hear the great news that Colepitz has reformed. They have a new album, called No Tomorrow Tonight, which Rob was kind enough to send me. This is another I might not have heard without that personal connection, which would be a shame, since No Tomorrow Tonight is the most consistently awesome heavy record I’ve heard in some time.

The musical force behind Colepitz is guitarist Ray Suhy. He was impressive on the first Colepitz album, and he’s gotten 10 years better. Every one of these songs slips time signatures willy-nilly and throws up ear-popping musical surprises like the band has an endless supply. And yet, it stays heavy as hell throughout. Opener “Voices of War” is like someone shooting a semi-automatic nail gun at you. The riffs are jackhammers, Brian Higgins’ drums are relentless, and Korhonen screams like Phil Anselmo. But it’s intelligently-constructed, and complex. It must be a bitch to play live.

“War” ends with a sitar-fueled acoustic coda that leads perfectly into the next song, “Sometimes It’s All You Have.” It starts slow, but soon it explodes into a King’s X-style tricky-time juggernaut. Korhonen has become more relaxed and confident since the first Colepitz album, and his work is more varied here. He has an appealing everyman singing voice, but can deliver jagged screams with the best of them, and when it’s called for (as on the quieter epic “Now the Lion Fades”), he takes it all down to a vulnerable, breathy whisper. And just listen to the extended high note he carries in “Sometimes.” That’s impressive.

If there’s a single here, it’s “Slow Climb,” the catchiest piece on the album. Another of Suhy’s dynamite riffs flows perfectly into a memorable chorus, then erupts again into one of the most fiery passages on the record. This is just a great little song. And on the next track, “In the Middle of the Square,” the Colepitz guys somehow get Morphine sax man Dana Colley to deliver a solo. But do they write a Morphine-esque section for Colley to jam over? The hell they do. Colley’s solo is atop one of the heaviest bits of the song. I can only imagine what he thought when he heard what they wanted, but it works wonderfully.

No Tomorrow Tonight ends with a seven-minute piece called “Break Like No One Else Does,” which dives effortlessly between clean-toned, spectral beauty and spine-crushing slow heaviness. The last movement is a reprise of the title track, bringing things full circle. This album is terrific, something I would buy and recommend even if I didn’t know the lead singer. I’m grateful I got the chance to hear it, and I hope it doesn’t take another decade for the next one.

* * * * *

Even today, 10 years after I left my paying music journalism gig, I’m still meeting musicians, and hearing music I wouldn’t otherwise. My long and winding road has brought me to Aurora, Illinois, where I happily toil as a chronicler of everyday life. I work for the local newspaper, and even with all the annoyances, great and small, that come with such a job, I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed anything more. I get paid to tell stories, and to meet fascinating people.

And I’ve met a lot, many of whom are musicians. One of my first-year features here was about a singer/songwriter named Greg Boerner, who composed an entire album (World So Blue) about his divorce. Greg’s one of the few people I’ve met who makes his living playing music. Nothing else. He’s a great live performer, one who can captivate a crowd with just a guitar and his voice.

I got to meet Jeff Elbel, the man behind those Ping albums I’ve enjoyed for years, and found out that he’s one of the best people you’d ever want to know. I’ve been re-watching Lost with Jeff – we’re about to start season five – and he’s been my traveling companion on several musical adventures. Jeff owns a recording studio in Wheaton, and when he’s not playing live with one of his 35 different bands, he’s working on that new Ping record. The songs I’ve heard have been tremendous fun.

And I’ve just started getting to know Kevin Trudo. Kevin’s another one who’s making a go as a professional musician, full stop. He’s a gifted songwriter, one who strings together tough and complex and honest lyrics that make my jaw drop, and when he plays out with his band, The Kevin Trudo and Meathawk, I try not to miss it. Better than that, he’s a warm and funny and encouraging man, and he lets me play his piano. Kevin doesn’t have any records yet, but when he does, I’ll be at the front of the line, waiting to get one. Through Kevin I’ve met others, like Todd Kessler and Matt McCain and Chris Bauler, great guys all.

Central to a lot of these musical relationships is Benjie Hughes, owner of Back Third Audio, a recording studio in downtown A-Town. I tracked my dad’s wedding song at Benjie’s place, and couldn’t have been happier with the result. (Engineer Kyle Schmidt even made my voice sound passable.) Benjie sees his role as forging musical friendships, and he wants Back Third to be a hub around which the community can gather. I can only speak for myself, but I’ve met many great people and musicians through Benjie’s efforts.

People like Andrea Dawn and her husband, Zach Goforth. I first met them through Back Third’s annual Christmas concert, Tiny Candle, and was immediately taken with Andrea’s voice. It’s strong and sultry and full of character, and she’s able to belt out her melodies while playing tricky piano parts. She’s great, a star in the making, and Zach is the all-purpose backup man. He plays guitar and bass and anything else that makes melodic sounds – give him a few hours and he’d learn how to make beautiful music with your phone and your microwave.

Andrea’s latest project is a 30-minute live EP, recorded at Back Third as part of her prize for winning one of Benjie’s regular Songwriter Showcase events. Now, here is what I love about owning these small, limited-edition releases – Live at Back Third Audio comes in a homemade pouch, hand-sewn by Andrea herself, and labeled with one of those letter-stamp devices. It’s adorably homespun, an item I will treasure.

The music’s pretty grand, too. Backed up by Zach on bass, Dan Knighten on drums and Jeremy Junkin on clarinet, Andrea runs through six of her songs, some of which sound like old standards, some of which bring Fiona Apple to mind. Her voice is strong, her arrangements full and rich. I’ve been a big fan of “Spin the Bottle” for a while, and this version is superb – when Andrea hits the “let’s get a little jaded, let’s get animated” chorus, the song blossoms.

My other favorite is the closer, “Just Fine,” a sprightly yet dangerous tune with a great ascending melody. “I don’t think I need you around no more,” Andrea sings, before hitting some deep, throaty, soulful ad-libs, her voice in simply stunning form. Andrea Dawn is someone I think everyone in the world should know, and if she keeps on writing and playing like this, it may be only a matter of time until they all do.

* * * * *

In addition to backing up his wife, Zach Goforth plays in fellow Auroran Jeremy Keen’s band, the False Starts. I think I met Jeremy once, at one of Benjie’s events, but neither of us can remember, so perhaps not. I know what I’ll say when I meet him again for the first time, though: nice job on that new record.

Keen’s new album is called Lock and Key, and it was recorded in more than half a dozen different locations in and around Aurora. Given that, it’s remarkably consistent – this is a fully-produced effort, not a collection of field recordings. Keen writes sturdy folk-pop with engaging melodies, and his songs are deceptively simple. They’ll sneak up on you and get stuck in your head.

Lock and Key is something of a concept record. It opens with weeping strings, leading into a song called “Sad,” and it stays in a realm of hopelessness for several tracks. The slowest ones are up front, including “Save Me,” the darkest of all: “No love fails me like this love fails me, and no one can save me now.” But as the album progresses, it gets brighter, and Keen saves his happiest tunes for the end. “Never Thought It’d Be You” is a danceable tale of love that catches you by surprise, while “Promise” is a song of commitment, its refrain a simple declaration: “I’ll stay and never leave, ‘cause I promised I would.”

Lock and Key closes with “Shine Your Light,” its most joyous, effervescent, and best song. Keen breaks out the electric guitars and cranks them up for only the second time on the album (the first is the fittingly titled “Barnburner”), and delivers his best chorus, a convincingly raucous six-string explosion. If the album was intended as a journey from dark to light, ending with this was the perfect choice. These songs are all about relationships, and by the end, we feel that all is right in our main character’s earthly and spiritual worlds.

Keen’s album comes in a homemade package as well, a recycled cardboard sleeve that has been hand-stenciled and die-cut. The design – a white heart with a keyhole punched out of the middle – is simple and effective, just like the album itself. Lock and Key is a smart little record with lots of promise, from an artist deserving of a wider audience. And I look forward to being able to tell him so in person.

* * * * *

This isn’t every musician I’ve met through the years, of course. But it’s enough to make me eternally grateful for this life I’ve lived. Music, and the people who make it, and the people who love it, have brought me so much joy. I’ve done this column for nearly 10 years because of what music means to me, but also, because of what all of you reading this mean to me.

Benjie Hughes likes to say that music is people, and he’s absolutely right. My musical life has been all the more amazing because of all of you, the people I’ve met along the way. The people who have enriched my life are like my favorite songs – I’ll carry them with me forever, and when I’m feeling lonely, or used up, or worthless, I’ll think of them, like a lovely melody you sing to get through the day.

I’ve been so lucky. So very lucky. Thank you, all of you.

So here’s the part where I provide a bunch of links, and you all follow them and check out these people I know. It’s your chance to get to know them too. In alphabetical order:

Greg Boerner
Chris Callaway (Able Archer)
Andrea Dawn
Jeff Elbel (Ping)
Benjie Hughes (Back Third Audio)
Jeremy Keen
Todd Kessler
Shane Kinney (Lost on Liftoff)
Rob Korhonen (Colepitz)
Tony Shore (ObviousPop)
Kevin Trudo

Again, this is by no means every musician I’ve met, just the ones mentioned in this column. If I forgot you, let me know and I’ll add you to the list.

That’s 500 down, and no end in sight. Next week, 501, with (deep breath) Iron Maiden, Brian Wilson, John Mellencamp, Ray LaMontagne, and the Eels. Until then, I am gratefully yours. 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 have a complex relationship with the word “indie.”

I certainly use it enough, and I find it a useful descriptor. When I say “indie,” you all think the same thing: scrappy guitar music recorded by people who aren’t looking for radio hits. When you hear the word indie, you’re imagining guys in glasses and sweater vests writing clever-catchy songs about the girls who broke their hearts, aren’t you? In that way, the word works.

But in another, it’s broken. It used to mean music released on an independent label, which used to mean a record label not owned by a major corporation. Now indie bands like Death Cab for Cutie and the Decemberists are on major labels like Atlantic and Capitol, respectively, and many of the so-called independent labels are subsidiaries of big companies. In this Internet age, it would seem the most independent bands are the ones without labels, who release their music on their own. But I don’t think anyone would ever call Nine Inch Nails indie.

It’s like alternative, or punk, a word fully severed from its original meaning and turned into a marketing term. It’s also kind of a snobby word, one that turns its nose up at the radio-friendly and the accessible. If something is indie, it’s automatically more meaningful and relevant and worth hearing than something that is not indie to a distressingly large chunk of the music-loving population. Never mind the fact that the term is now used by men in suits who decide how to best spend millions in advertising budgets.

The sheep-and-goats nature of a word like indie often leads the image-conscious to reject whole catalogs of music they might otherwise enjoy. It also leads the indie cognoscenti to praise and embrace truly terrible stuff that the non-indie labels would never release, and with good reason. They do this so they can seem more in touch with the cutting edge. They can start trends, and have whole conversations about bands no one else knows, just to feel good about themselves. “Oh, you don’t know the Humpbacked Shitweasels? They’re the latest thing. They sound like a mix of the Ocelots and the Translucent Unitards. Oh, you don’t know those bands either? Too bad for you. Everyone will be talking about them soon, trust me.”

I really believe this happens a lot. Even if I didn’t, I’d be hard-pressed to come up with another explanation for the drooling adulation the indie press gives to Wavves.

Nathan Williams’ one-man project is probably my favorite example of how the whole indie thing is broken. Williams is an early-20s surfer guy who gladly and cheerfully admits he’s not a musician. I’ve read more about his on-stage breakdowns than I have about the music he makes with Wavves, a sort of actively-annoying lo-fi home-recorded noise. He somehow convinced Fat Possum Records to release two whole discs of this shit. I’ve only heard the second, Wavvves (note the third ‘v,’ there for extra indie-awesomeness), and if it’s an improvement, then the first one must be like jamming razorblades into one’s ear canal.

With Wavves, Williams has embraced both lack of ambition and lack of talent as badges of honor. And the indie press has eaten it up with a spoon. What better way to celebrate the division between us and them than with so-called music that makes anyone with a discerning ear want to vomit? You don’t like this? You’re not cool enough to like this. It’s not about the music, it’s about the aesthetic, and about being in the club. Listening to Wavves is less important than saying you listen to them.

That’s why reaction to King of the Beach, Wavves’ third album, has been so oddly mixed. For this disc, Williams decided to hire a couple of actual musicians, go into an actual studio, and crank out some actual songs. They’re not very good songs, mind you, but they are songs, and the recording is infinitely more polished this time out. That means it’s still rough and hissy and ragged, but you can hear what each instrument is doing now. King of the Beach is a surprisingly coherent, sprightly little rock record, leaps and bounds above anything Nathan Williams has done before.

And that’s made some people pretty mad. In addition to the usual praises, Williams has come in for some stick online for dispensing with the ugly noise and writing hummable tunes. I read one comment from a former fan who said when Williams decided to go into a real recording studio, he sold out. That’s right, people are complaining that this record doesn’t sound shitty enough. I know I grew up a Boston fan, but that just seems strange to me.

What these people are trying to say is that Williams is now too mainstream for them. Yes, he’s on Fat Possum, and yes, only a couple thousand people will ever hear King of the Beach. But that’s a couple thousand too many for people who want to be known as tastemakers. Better to get in on the backlash now and maintain your cred. While standing at an ironically safe distance, of course.

Blah blah blah. What does the music sound like?

Well, it’s spunky, melodic pop music, made by rank amateurs with a sloppiness that sometimes borders on appealing. The title track and “Super Soaker” are the best songs here, sequenced first and second, and the most likely to get stuck in your head. Modest Mouse producer Dennis Herring has clearly done a lot to improve Williams’ voice, a blunt and scattershot instrument, but Williams still just kind of shout-moans his way through this thing. His lyrics are about his own life as a beach bum and bored rich kid, and are all surface-level. Still, this is listenable, and even kind of fun at times.

It’s obvious Williams worked pretty hard on this album. “Post Acid” is a fun romp with a groovy “ooh-ooh” chorus. “When Will You Come” aims for a ‘50s sun-drenched sound, and Williams’ falsetto notwithstanding, it works. Still, there’s absolutely nothing remarkable about this, nothing worth the silly amounts of adulation being heaped on it in some corners. Williams set his own bar pretty low, but seriously. It’s loud and sloppy indie-rock, which is better than loud and ass-aching noise, which I guess is better than static. But at some point, it’s just a matter of degrees.

* * * * *

Bethany Cosentino has come in for the same praise as her friend Williams, but for some reason, I think she fares better. Cosentino calls herself Best Coast, and her 31-minute debut album is entitled Crazy for You. The front cover, painstakingly designed to look shitty, features a picture of Cosentino’s cat Snacks, who has his own Twitter feed. This is the world we’re living in now.

But one listen to the album and such concerns melt away. Crazy for You is adorable. It’s a very simple record – simpler in many ways than Wavves’ effort – but its charm is immense and undeniable. Imagine ‘50s girl-group romantic ballads performed on thick, reverb-soaked guitars and you have the right idea. Cosentino sings like a bird, and harmonizes with herself in pure Phil Spector fashion. The songs are all very short – “Honey” is the epic at 3:01 – and packed with sweet, sweet melodies.

The lyrics are all self-consciously simple and lovey-dovey, which may irritate some. I think there are three songs on here built around the phrase “I miss you,” and occasional references to weed aside, Cosentino spends the entirety of Crazy for You pining over boys, or walking away from them. And yet, her homage to a bygone age of pop music is so heartfelt, so complete, that I don’t mind. When she sings “I wish you were my boyfriend,” all is right with the world. Occasionally, Cosentino reminds me of Jenny Lewis here, but for the most part, she’s doing her own thing.

That thing does get wearying after a while. These 13 songs all sound essentially the same, and it’s probably good this is only half an hour long. The indie press is fawning all over this, of course, but I have reservations. I wonder if Cosnetino has another trick, or if future Best Coast albums will sound just like this one. As a one-off, Crazy for You is sweet and fun and lightweight. As a career, even the considerable charms on display here will grow old. (The aforementioned “Honey” points towards a darker direction, which is welcome.)

I hope Cosentino can find a way to stick around, though. Unlike Williams, she seems to know what she’s doing, and she knows her way around a melody. Crazy for You is full of fun tunes with a sense of history. While it may not be an album I pull out very often, I expect I’ll enjoy it each time I do.

* * * * *

But if we’re going to talk about indie, particularly its original definition, we have to bring up Starflyer 59. Well, we don’t have to. But I think it’s worth doing, so bear with me, okay?

Starflyer 59 has been around for 17 years now. Mastermind Jason Martin met Brandon Ebel at a music festival in 1993, and gave him a demo tape. Shortly thereafter, Martin’s band was one of the first to sign with then-fledgling Tooth and Nail Records, Ebel’s company. 11 albums, 10 EPs and a box set later, Martin’s still with Tooth and Nail, and still putting out remarkable pop records that too few will hear.

The latest of these, the 12th, is called The Changing of the Guard. Like every Starflyer record, it sounds completely different from the last one, and yet of a piece with Martin’s catalog. This new one abandons the angular ‘80s pop of Dial M for a more Church-inspired sound: strummed acoustics, clean reverbed guitar lines, a smattering of synths, and Martin’s low, dark voice. It’s an atmospheric record, but it rocks as well, and Martin’s gift for sonic layering never deserts him. And the songs? He’s Jason Martin. Of course they’re good.

Now, I realize at this point some of you might be accusing me of hypocrisy. How dare I get all huffy about reviewers who praise unknown artists, and then do the exact same thing? Do I feel that much cooler for knowing Starflyer 59? Well, no. Martin’s been doing this way too long to be the Next Big Thing, and he’s not about to get that buzz going, not after 12 albums. He’s just a guy on the periphery, doing what he does with remarkable consistency. Knowing him doesn’t make you more indie, or more inside, or more of a trend-setter. If you get to know him, though, your CD collection will be a little bigger, and a little richer for it.

Jason Martin’s never made a bad record, but The Changing of the Guard is superb. It opens with its softest songs – the swaying “Shane” sets the tone, with its light strumming, prominent keyboard line, piano bridge, and Martin’s deep vocal. “Trucker’s Son” is an autobiographical piece set to sweet finger-picked guitars, Martin singing about the faded dreams of his youth. It’s marvelous.

The record really picks up in its second half, however. “I Had a Song for the Ages” is terrific, bringing in a bit of jangling electrics to surround a swell chorus and a memorable piano figure. Martin taps into his side project, Neon Horse, a bit for “Cry Me a River,” and ends things with two acoustic rockers, the organ-drenched “Kick the Can” and the deep, dark “Lose My Mind.” Ten songs, 32 minutes, and yet unlike the Best Coast record, I want this one to go on and on.

Starflyer 59 is, to me, the epitome of what indie should be. Jason Martin is committed to a small label, which offers him the freedom to change up his sound however he wants. He uses that freedom to write as many great songs as he can, and just keeps plugging away. I don’t know if The Changing of the Guard will attract any more fans than Martin already has, but I don’t expect that will stop him if it doesn’t. This is why I go to the smaller labels – not to find the likes of Nathan Williams, or even Bethany Cosentino, working their way through their own amateur shoddiness, but to find musicians like Martin, tucked away in a corner of the world, making magic.

Hear Starflyer here.

* * * * *

It’s been a while since I’ve done this, as faithful reader Jeff Ward pointed out to me last week, so here’s a quick look at some records I’m excited about in the coming months.

Next week, we get the new Iron Maiden, entitled The Final Frontier. My inner teenage metalhead will be satisfied with that, but the more mature me is looking forward to new things from John Mellencamp (No Better Than This), Ray LaMontagne (God Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise) and Brian Wilson (Reimagines Gershwin). The week after that, we get the third Eels album in 18 months, Tomorrow Morning, as well as the new Ra Ra Riot, The Orchard, and a sci-fi concept album called Warp Riders from stoner metal heroes The Sword.

August rounds out with Richard Thompson’s new one Dream Attic, a collaboration between Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice called I’m Having Fun Now, and Radiohead drummer Phil Selway’s solo album, Familial. September starts with an EP from Antony and the Johnsons, Thank You For Your Love, and the self-titled fourth album from Interpol. September 14 is massive, with new ones by Weezer (actually called Hurley, with a picture of Jorge Garcia on the cover), the Walkmen (Lisbon), Robert Plant (the well-regarded Band of Joy), Of Montreal (False Priest) and the first album from raunch-poppers The Vaselines in 20 years or so, Sex With an X.

Come back on September 21 for John Legend’s team-up with the Roots, Wake Up, and stay for the first new Swans album in ages, My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. Also, Richard’s son Teddy Thompson returns with Bella, which I hope isn’t a tribute album to Twilight. September finishes up with new things from Bad Religion (The Dissent of Man) and Nellie McKay (Home Sweet Mobile Home), but I’m most looking forward to Lonely Avenue, Ben Folds’ new album with lyrics by novelist Nick Hornby.

October, then, will bring us Antony’s full album, Swanlights; a new Elvis Costello called National Ransom, produced by T-Bone Burnett; Guster’s Easy Wonderful; Wreckorder, a solo album from Travis’ Fran Healy; Kid Cudi’s Man in the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager; and, for you moshers, a full-length from Phil Anselmo’s new band Arson Anthem. Also, for the big spenders out there, a 30-CD box set of every master recording Elvis Presley ever made will be available, for a modest $750.

That’s not everything, but it’s the stuff I’m most looking forward to. Stay tuned for reviews of all of the above, if I can manage it.

* * * * *

Next week is my 500th column. I’m trying to decide what to do to celebrate. Find out in seven days. 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.

There are so few bands these days that truly strive for greatness.

That’s not the same as saying that few bands are truly great, although that is also true. I’m talking about bands that aren’t afraid to genuinely reach for the stars, and be seen doing it. Most music follows previously-established formulas, standing on the shoulders of those who came before. There’s nothing wrong with that – many of my favorite bands do nothing else – but adding a personal touch to Ray Davies-esque pop, for instance, can hardly be called going for the brass ring.

Musicians who don’t follow those formulas, or who find interesting ways to turn them on their ears, usually break down into a couple of groups. There are those who humbly present their work, with an aw-shucks-here-are-my-songs-I-hope-you-like-them demeanor, and there are those who maintain a full and ironic detachment from their own music, lest they be considered lame by the hecklers in the peanut gallery. There’s a sense, intentionally given, that these musicians don’t take what they do all that seriously.

It’s not just that wearing your heart on your sleeve isn’t cool. It can be – think Nick Drake, or Elliott Smith. But those guys have a fragility about them that belies their craft. It’s easy to imagine those whispered melodies just tumbling out of Smith, his guitar a conduit to his soul. He wasn’t trying to be as good as he was. No, what I’m talking about is that particular quality exemplified by U2, especially 1980s U2. Here was a band who said, out loud, they were aiming to be the best band in the world. And they worked to the fullest of their ability to do just that.

There are whole generations of people now who don’t understand why U2 was so important. Nothing they’ve done since Achtung Baby in 1991 has had that same verve, that confident and unrestrained ambition, that feeling that the band pushed themselves to the limit. From Boy to Achtung Baby, U2 clearly tried to make The Best Album Ever each time out. Whether they succeeded is another matter, and one of opinion. The point is, they tried.

Same thing with Radiohead, until they lost the plot. On The Bends and especially OK Computer, you could hear them trying with everything they had to be the greatest band on the planet. When they believed it, nothing could stop them. When they shrunk back from it, turning out synth-drone experiments and swapping ambition for pretentiousness, they lost that edge. Even the most ardent Radiohead fan would have trouble arguing that the band is really trying anymore.

There are still some aiming for greatness, though, instead of just acting like they are. (That’s a whole different column, but see Jon Bon Jovi as an example.) One of the finest cases in point is Arcade Fire. Seven members, a sound that could move mountains, and a dramatic sweep that fills every room it’s played into, and carries you along with it. Each time out, this Montreal outfit has seemed on a mission to make the biggest, boldest and best record their little hearts can muster.

Their third, The Suburbs, is their biggest, boldest and best. A 16-song, 64-minute cycle, The Suburbs has not one moment of levity or irony, not one second on which the band isn’t giving their all with an earnest, consuming fire. The Suburbs is an extended meditation on that moment you realize there is life beyond the houses and shopping malls you’ve always known, that moment you see what has been imprisoning you, and how you can leave it. Some have called it hopeless, but to me, that smacks of not taking in the complete album. And it is definitely meant to be swallowed whole.

The music is certainly darker and more sweeping than anything this band has done. It builds on the strengths of 2007’s Neon Bible, sometimes swaying in the wind, sometimes howling with phenomenal force. None of it feels forced or overstuffed – it’s just monolithic enough. The opening title track is deceptively easygoing, with its marching beat and plunking piano, but “Ready to Start” (appropriately enough) kicks things into gear. A sonic explosion rushing like a hurricane in to knock down those suburban houses in the liner note photos, “Ready to Start” sets the themes in motion: “If the businessmen drink my blood like the kids in art school said they would, I guess I’ll just begin again…”

Above all this turmoil is Win Butler, who has a blocky yet remarkably emotional voice. Butler isn’t a flashy frontman – he doesn’t have the charisma or the quirkiness to rise above the songs, but he doesn’t need to. He’s part of the din, not the focus of it, and as the band swirls around him – check out the steadily-building “Rococo,” which adds layers and layers to its repetitive foundation – he becomes as intense as he needs to. (Special mention needs to be made of Owen Pallett, whose arrangements this time are amazing.)

The songs on The Suburbs are more like movements of a symphony, each approaching the theme from a different angle. There’s nothing here as immediate as “No Cars Go” or “Rebellion (Lies),” but these songs work together like no others the band has written. The suburban war is mentioned early, in the title track, so when it arrives on track nine (“Suburban War,” natch), it feels like a well-foreshadowed plot point. That song is a little masterpiece, plaintive guitars spinning out a dark melody while Butler laments those he has lost: “Now the cities we live in could be distant stars, and I search for you in every passing car…”

One more side note about “Suburban War,” since it contains one of the most accurate observations of suburban teenage life on the record: “Now the music divides us into tribes, you choose your side, I’ll choose my side.” That’s exactly how it is. Your musical taste is like a brand, tying you to an identity and a group of friends. A metal kid would rather die than admit he sometimes listens to Elton John.

“Month of May,” another one of those sonic explosions, draws a fine analogy between disaffected youth and the dead – both are immoble and emotionless, with their arms folded tight. Yet hope is here: “Start again in the month of May, come on and blow the wires away…” “Wasted Hours” may be the album’s darkest, despite its sprightly acoustic rhythm, as Butler wishes he were “anywhere but here,” and comes to a revelation about adulthood: “We’re still kids in buses, longing to be free…” The two-part “The Sprawl” finds Butler wondering if there is anything else besides human ruin.

But he’s older now, and even though he can’t believe it, he’s moving past the feeling. The Suburbs is something of a sequel to the band’s debut, Funeral, but it’s tougher, and it earns its hope more completely. The end of the album finds Butler looking back on his suburban imprisonment with equal parts nostalgia and dread. In some ways, I think we all feel that way about our childhoods. In the minute-long coda “The Suburbs (Continued),” Butler muses, “If I could have it back, all the time that we wasted, I’d only waste it again, if I could have it back, you know I would love to waste it again.”

It’s not enough for Butler and company to make an album about suburban childhood, however. They set about making The Best Album About Suburban Childhood Ever, and you can hear that drive in every minute of it. The Suburbs is an extremely quick 64 minutes, but it will fill you up and drain you dry. It does all this without winking at you, or shrinking from its ambition. It is, quite simply, a great record, and it never pretends to be anything else.

* * * * *

Jimmy Gnecco is another who consistently aims for the rafters. He’s been gifted with a supernatural voice – there aren’t many singers in Jeff Buckley’s league, but Gnecco is one of them – and an unfaltering sense of the dramatic. His one-man-band project, Ours, draped that extraordinary voice in sheets of blinding guitar and production so thick you could swim in it. Gnecco can sing like an angel, but when he lets loose and really screams it out, it’s like the walls of the world coming down.

Gnecco’s biggest problem has always been his image. His album covers are gothic nightmares, and if you picked up Precious expecting Marilyn Manson-style doom-laden noise, I wouldn’t blame you. Likewise, if you approach his solo debut The Heart cold, you’re greeted with the image of a naked Gnecco covered in tattoos, looking like Vincent Gallo or someone who might frequent the Suicide Girls website. Think HIM and you have the right idea.

But the music inside could not be more different. Nearly all of The Heart is acoustic, slow and pretty. It still retains Gnecco’s flair for the dramatic, but everything is subdued, simpler and quieter. The Heart is an hour long, and it never picks up. The entire album is like something Gnecco recorded at home on a series of rainy days. Some of it is jaw-droppingly beautiful, but much of it meanders around, following emotional logic – the record feels to me like a thorough bleeding, something Gnecco simply had to get out of his system.

One thing I will say for it, The Heart is a showcase for Gnecco’s remarkable voice. The title track, for instance, is a couple of strummed chords over handclaps for six minutes, but the looping melody shows off Gnecco’s range. It finds him leaping from hushed tones to full-on, full-force screaming, and I’ve never heard that voice so unadorned, so naked. This isn’t a song I think I can listen to very often, because it’s so draining.

I actually find I like this record better when Gnecco calms things down, and writes a compelling melody. “Bring You Home” is a favorite, particularly when the electric guitar kicks in and Gnecco leaps for his falsetto. “These Are My Hands” is nice as well, with its “woah-oh” refrain and memorable chorus. But much of this album is simply self-indulgent, and I think it could have been trimmed by four or five songs. Then again, the goal of an album like this is not to be concise and sharp, but to be messy and rambling, like the emotions of the heartbroken.

It’s easy to see why this isn’t an Ours record. This one is pure Gnecco, and it’s like trundling through his mind, ducking down corridors and byways that don’t necessarily lead anywhere. But the journey is at least pretty interesting. If this unkempt collection was just something bursting to come out, then I hope it’s out, and Gnecco gets back to making focused, dramatic art-rock next time. The Heart is not the first Gnecco album I’ll reach for, but it does show some very different sides to a singular and unjustly obscure artist, and for that, I’m glad I heard it.

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It’s been a busy and exhausting seven days since we last spoke, so unlike either of the artists on tap this week, I’m going to keep it short. Next week, I get all indie on your ass. 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.