At some point, I’m going to have to stop comparing every Death Cab for Cutie album to Plans.

It’s difficult for me, though. I liked Death Cab before their 2005 masterpiece, and I’ve liked them after it as well. But no album they’ve made affects me like that one does. A full-blooded meditation on death and the distances that keep us alone, Plans hit me like a sudden epiphany. It remains their most emotionally resonant and musically beautiful record for me, one that never fails to move me. I think it is this Washington band’s clear apex, the way OK Computer is for Radiohead, or Sgt. Pepper is for the Beatles.

I thought it was important to get that bias out of the way upfront, because while I will someday need to stop measuring each new Death Cab record against Plans (and, more accurately, against the way Plans made me feel), I haven’t yet. The first two or three listens to new Death Cab always leave me feeling underwhelmed and vaguely disappointed. It happened with 2008’s Narrow Stairs, and with 2009’s The Open Door, and now it’s happened again with their seventh record, Codes and Keys.

And in this case, the meh is proving harder to shake off. It’s not a bad record, but I’m coming around to the idea that it’s Death Cab’s weakest for some time. And that’s a shame.

When attempting to describe the difference between Plans and Narrow Stairs, I reached for an author’s analogy: the former is a novel, I said, while the latter is a series of short stories. They’re nice stories, but they don’t pack the same cumulative punch. The same can’t be said of Codes and Keys, but I can extend the analogy – this is the ambitious follow-up novel, the one that sacrifices characters for theme, the one that aims to make a Grand Statement, but ends up falling short.

You can hear that ambition in every moment of this record. It is, sonically, the most complex and, frankly, dazzling thing they’ve made. The live-band feel of Stairs is gone, replaced by a painstakingly assembled, glittering studio construct. I can see them spending whole studio days on the exact bass tone they wanted, or trying out different decays on the piercing tones of “St. Peter’s Cathedral.”

For producer (and guitarist) Chris Walla, this is his finest achievement. He knows the band has one distinct advantage that allows them to experiment more than many of their peers, and that’s the voice of Ben Gibbard. His pipes are so distinctive that whatever he sings, no matter how out there, sounds like Death Cab. As long as Gibbard is behind the mic, gracing these tunes with his high, clear, breathtaking voice, the band can go just about anywhere and still sound grounded. And on Codes and Keys, they do – there are sounds on here you’ve never heard this band make.

The trouble with this is twofold – the layered sound creates an emotional distance that the band never overcomes, and the material just isn’t up to the task. I can’t fault Death Cab for creating a big, bold piece of work, but they didn’t write the kind of big, bold songs that requires. In fact, most of these defiantly simple pieces would have sounded better had they been stripped back and allowed to breathe. For all the wizardry on display, Codes and Keys is largely made up of low-key pop – tunes like “Some Boys” and “Monday Morning” and the title track, fun little nothings that don’t go much of anywhere.

Worse than that, though, are Gibbard’s lyrics this time out. Like a novelist seeking to make points beyond his grasp, Gibbard fills Codes and Keys with vague homilies. They sound important, but they don’t connect. Gibbard is usually very good at creating characters and then getting inside their skins, but here he’s content to stick to generalities. Codes is a thematically rich album – it’s about stepping out of your comfort zone, realizing there’s no afterlife worth striving for, and learning to enjoy the life we have. But it stays at arm’s length when it could be a moving experience.

All that said, there are songs here I love. “Underneath the Sycamore” contains the album’s finest hook, and its best lyric. It begins after a car crash, one its protagonist did not survive, and it’s about finding serenity and equality at the last. “This is where we find our peace, this is where we are released,” Gibbard sings, and the band pointedly sequences the comparatively boring “St. Peter’s Cathedral” immediately afterward, a song on which Gibbard concludes there is nowhere to go after death: “When our hearts stop ticking, this is the end, there’s nothing past this…”

I am also a fan of the tricky opener, “Home is a Fire,” which sets up the theme of leaving the comfortable. “Doors Unlocked and Open” and “You Are a Tourist” hit me the right way too, the former with its constant build and the latter with its slippery guitar and vocal lines. But no song here amazes me the way “Unobstructed Views” does. It is unlike any other Death Cab song, floating in on airy synths and ponderous piano, and then stretching that atmosphere over a completely instrumental first three minutes. When Gibbard comes in, singing of the cosmic significance of love, it sends chills. As far as I can tell, there are no guitars in the entire six-minute piece, and it’s the one moment of the album that achieves the transcendence it aims for.

Scratch that – there are actually two moments like that, and the delightful closer “Stay Young, Go Dancing” is the other. After all the weighty spiritual and philosophical thoughts batted around here, the record ends with a two-minute burst of sunlight. The strings are a bit much – I’d like to hear this tune without them, actually – but I can’t fault the song, perhaps the most gloriously optimistic and romantic in the Death Cab catalog. “When she sings, I hear a symphony, and I’m swallowed in sound as it echoes through me, I’m renewed, how I feel alive, and though autumn’s advancing, we’ll stay young, go dancing…”

The ending is so sweet that it serves to paper over some of the low points, like “Some Boys” (on which Gibbard apparently sees nothing wrong with building a song around the line, “Some boys don’t know how to love”), or the completely forgettable “Portable Television.” Even a weak Death Cab for Cutie album is worth hearing, and despite the towering high points, this one is pretty weak. It’s trying very hard, but about half of this material misses the mark, and the rest doesn’t connect with any force. Codes and Keys is so concerned with its own importance that it misses the intimate details that mark Death Cab’s finest work. It’s an ambitious and earnestly-meant effort. I just wish I liked it more.

* * * * *

Similarly, David Bazan is probably going to have trouble living up to 2009’s Curse Your Branches for the rest of his career.

After years of leading Pedro the Lion away from the spiritual light he once basked in, Bazan finally broke up with God on his solo debut. A stunning, difficult, confessional and often petulant record, Branches scorched the earth behind it, making for an absolutely riveting listen. It was as much about his own failings as God’s – “Please Baby Please” remains a startlingly tough song to get through for me – and could easily have been his final musical statement. If he’d decided that he just couldn’t top it, and drifted away from music entirely, I wouldn’t have blamed him.

But here he is, two years later, with another report from his earthly and spiritual travels. This one is called Strange Negotiations, and yes, it falls short of its predecessor. It’s less focused, less insightful, less jaw-droppingly naked (despite the extraordinary cover photo). Given all that, though, it’s a tremendous album in its own right, dark and discomfiting, full of great lines and strong melodies. It’s an easier listen than Curse Your Branches, but the punch it packs is more insidious, making itself known only through repeat dives below its surface.

Musically, I like it better than Curse, actually. For the first time since Achilles Heel in 2004, Bazan has a real-live band playing with him, and the result is appealingly raw. “Wolves at the Door” gets things started on the right note – it’s a ripping piece of music, guitars snarling while Bazan, sounding remarkably energized, spins his cautionary tale: “They took your money and they ate your kids, and they had your way with your wife a lil’ bit, while you wept on the porch with your head in your hands, cursing taxes and the government, ‘cause you’re a goddamned fool…”

Bazan points fingers a lot on this record. “Level With Yourself” includes this verse: “We’re making a list of all the negative side effects that come with the shit you let yourself get away with.” But he spins it back on himself later in the same song, compiling the same list of “the shit I let myself get away with.” Bazan is angry, but he’s also self-aware and clear-eyed. In “People,” he offers an olive branch of sorts to the faith community: “I wanna know who these people are, blaming their sins on the fall, who are these people? If I’m honest with myself at all, these are my people, man, what else can I say, you are my people, and we’re the same in so many ways…”

The strongest songs, musically speaking, are the two Bazan co-wrote with the great Jason Martin, mastermind of Starflyer 59. Both “Eating Paper” and “Messes” stomp along like the finest SF59 rockers, and the latter even works in some of Martin’s trademark synths. “Messes” could fit on any latter-period Pedro the Lion album, with its tale of personal failings coming to light. Bazan flips the script back on himself most effectively on “Don’t Change” – the first verse calls out a drunken manipulator, and the second makes clear that manipulator is Bazan himself. “When I wake up in the morning, I tell myself today I’ll make a change, but falling into my bed at night, I think, man, it was a beautiful day to stay the same…”

With all the darkness swirling around every song, Strange Negotiations ends with a fully-earned shaft of light that may be my favorite of Bazan’s solo numbers. “Won’t Let Go” is a delicate declaration of love in the form of an answering machine message. Musically, it’s a pulsing, atmospheric, low-key piece, and it spots some of Bazan’s best vocals here: “Who or what controls the fates of men I cannot say, but I keep arriving safely home to you, and I humbly acknowledge that I won’t always get my way, but darling death will have to pry my fingers loose, ‘cause I will not let go of you…”

That moment, like everything on Strange Negotiations, feels real. David Bazan is one of the most honest songwriters working today, and if he seems more reflective and less self-destructive here, then I can only take that as a positive thing for him. No, this album is not the stunning experience Curse Your Branches was. But like everything Bazan has done, it’s a worthy piece of work, another chapter in the diary of a most fascinating artist.

* * * * *

Danger Mouse is everywhere.

Just last year, he produced the Black Keys album Brothers, started Broken Bells with the Shins’ James Mercer, and released Dark Night of the Soul, his collaboration with the late Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. This year, he’s put out an EP with Broken Bells, and he’s producing an album for U2. Not bad for a guy who made his name mashing up the Beatles and Jay-Z.

And now he’s given us perhaps his weirdest project yet. It’s called Rome, and it’s a collaboration with Italian composer Daniele Luppi. It’s a spaghetti western soundtrack without a movie, and it features Jack White and Norah Jones on vocals. It’s a hard record to explain, but an easy one to like. It’s roughly half instrumental, and Danger Mouse and Luppi have crafted a minor-key, walking-through-the-desert sound here that is immensely appealing.

But most people won’t come to Rome for that. They’ll come to hear White and Jones, completely out of their usual contexts, and it’s worth it. White shows up first, on the slippery “The Rose With a Broken Neck,” and as you’d expect from a musical chameleon, he fits right in. He’s awesome on “Two Against One,” the closest this record comes to rocking out. Jones, however, is the revelation – she sounds awake and alive on slinky ‘70s-style tracks like “Season’s Trees,” or at least more awake and alive than I’ve heard her. She’s an inspired choice for this material.

Luppi’s string and choral arrangements are terrific, never overpowering (or even stepping forward, really), but always adding atmosphere. “Her Hollow Ways” is built around a delicate celesta line, and as quiet as that instrument is, it’s front and center here amidst an orchestra and a hundred voices. White wrote the lyrics for all three songs he sings, and his finest moment is on the closer, “The World.” He whips out his falsetto, which perfectly complements the slinky bass, swirly organ and swelling strings.

I have no idea who Danger Mouse made this album for, besides himself. But it’s wonderful stuff, and further proof that this guy can do just about anything. I don’t mind someone so talented cropping up all over the place – in fact, I hope his steady production work leads to more fascinating side trips like this one. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I hit play on this one, but Rome is a complete, smashing success.

* * * * *

Wow, June already? When next we speak, I will be 37 years old. I know, it’s crazy. You’re going to want to be here for next week – I’ve decided to jump into the world of Lady Gaga, and give it an honest review. If I can swallow my bile long enough, that is. (Open mind, open mind!)

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.

Here are a couple of disturbing statistics for you.

So far in 2011, I have bought 119 new albums. Now, there are some I haven’t heard yet, including the ones from this week, like Thurston Moore’s new album, and Neal Morse’s new Jesus-rock opera. But so far, a total of 53 of those new records have struck me as unremarkable, and not worthy of a review.

That’s not a bad average, actually. 2011 is shaping up to be the best year in some time. Under normal circumstances, the number of yawn-inducing albums would be much higher. Most of these discs this year are not going to be worth the three or four sentences I give them in my annual Fifty Second Week column in December.

But often lost amidst the flood of nothing much are often very good records that just don’t inspire me to review them right away. Sometimes these just slip right by until Fifty Second Week, and I find myself with less than a minute to extol the virtues of albums that deserved better from me.

So this week, I thought I’d make time for some good records that got lost in the shuffle already this year. None of these turned my world upside down, but all of them are worth hearing and owning. Here’s a look at three that almost got away.

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There’s an entire generation of kids now who only know Nirvana as Dave Grohl’s old band.

That amuses me to no end. You all know I’m not Kurt Cobain’s biggest fan, and I believe Nirvana’s three albums don’t even come close to deserving the enduring acclaim they get. But this isn’t about Nirvana. It’s about Dave Grohl, that band’s drummer, who has gone on to be one of the brightest lights in the rock and roll firmament.

To my mind, Foo Fighters have been a better and more consistent band than Nirvana all along. From the time they hit their stride, on 1997’s The Colour and the Shape, the Foos have put out one solid rock record after another. And now we have the seventh, Wasting Light, and it may be one of the best. Recorded quickly in a basement, this album contains no bells and no whistles. It is straightforward guitar rock from a group that knows how to do that shit right.

Wasting Light takes off right out of the gate with the one-two punch of “Bridge Burning” and “Rope,” two songs that continue the Foo Fighters standard of propulsive rock with hummable melodies. Bob Mould sits in on “Dear Rosemary,” a song with a Joe Jackson-esque verse riff, and Grohl takes on Motorhead (with a truly convincing scream) on “White Limo.”

The big news for old-school fans will be “I Should Have Known,” which brings Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic into the fold for four minutes. It is one of the most distinctive pieces here, its slow, almost bluesy crawl eventually exploding into a ferocious caterwaul. But it’s just another melodic monster on an album full of them. I’m particularly fond of “Arlandria,” with its killer chorus, and “These Days,” a bitter tale of ill wishes. And closing track “Walk” sums up everything that’s great about the Foo Fighters.

After I heard Wasting Light for the first time, I asked my Twitter legion if it was better than anything Nirvana had ever done. This is an uncomfortable proposition for a lot of people, but not for me – I think the answer is a resounding yes. This is unpretentious and unassuming stuff, the Foo Fighters content with writing tight, powerful little pop songs, and then playing them as loudly as they can. I love this kickass little disc.

* * * * *

I owe this next one to Andrea Dahlberg. Without her, and her devotion to NPR’s new music reports, I may never have discovered The Head and the Heart. And my year would have been that much less joyful.

The Head and the Heart is a subtle, down-home sextet from Seattle, with an appealing piano-folk sound. I’m not absolutely sure why these songs work for me as well as they do, but I think just about every track on this thing is marvelous. “Ghosts,” for example, floats on an easy groove, but lifts off when it gets to its hummable chorus. “Down in the Valley” is similarly simple, but the piano figure that comes in near the end is haunting and wonderful.

“Rivers and Roads” is my favorite, and I was surprised to learn that it was initially not included on this record. The voices of Josiah Johnson, Jonathan Russell and Charity Rose Thielen intertwine throughout the song, but come together in a glorious yearning at the end: “Rivers and roads, rivers ‘til I reach you…” As I said, I don’t know why something so traditional works for me on so many levels, but it really does.

Similarly, I’m not sure why “Sounds Like Hallelujah” leaves an idiot grin on my face, but it does. And closer “Heaven Go Easy on Me” is no more interesting, on its face, than a million other songs that use the same chords, but this one gets me. Something about the loose, lush harmonies and the lovely piano. And the strings that bring the record to a close are shivering and sweet.

I don’t know why this record has crept into my list of favorites from 2011. I’m just glad it has. The Head and the Heart doesn’t do much for my head, but it grabs my heart and holds on. Can’t wait to hear more.

* * * * *

One reason some of these albums slip through is that I just don’t have anything new to say about the bands that produce them.

A good case in point is Explosions in the Sky. This Texas quartet plays dramatic, sky-splittingly lovely guitar-based instrumental music, full of high drama and subtle interplay. They compose these mini-symphonies and play them with grace and power – they’re not a metal band like Pelican, but they’re not post-rock like Mogwai. They make beautiful noise, and they’ve essentially plied the same trade for 11 years.

And they’ve just done it again, with their fifth full-length, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care. The sound is a little quieter, but no less cathartic and layered here, and these six tracks are as good as anything the band has ever done. But they sound just like everything else the band has ever done. If you liked them before, you’ll like this. If you’ve never heard them, you may as well start with this. It’s no more or less accomplished than any other entry in their stellar catalog.

One thing I can say – the packaging on Take Care is their most elaborate, and most striking. It unfolds into a model house, with illustrations inside and out, and includes a fold-out plot of ground to place that house on, with views from above and underneath. It’s fittingly both pastoral and ominous, and it provides you with the only reason I can think of to buy this record over any other Explosions effort.

It may sound like I think their consistency is a bad thing, but I don’t. I adore Explosions’ sound, and wouldn’t want them to change it unnecessarily. Take Care is another wonderful ocean of clean guitars and atmospheres, punctuated by moments of fury. They do what they do very well, and even though it leaves me with little to add each time out, I hope they keep doing it.

* * * * *

Next week’s column is brought to you by the letter D, with Death Cab, David Bazan, Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi. 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.

For about a year and a half, Queen was my favorite band. Period.

I can’t even remember the first Queen song I heard. But I know it wasn’t “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I vividly recall hearing that for the first time, as intended, at the end of 1975’s A Night at the Opera, and gasping for breath as it unspooled. By that time, though, I was already a Queen fan. In fact, I’m pretty sure I heard 1976’s A Day at the Races before A Night at the Opera.

You can blame Hollywood Records for that. When they remastered and re-released Queen’s catalog in the U.S. for the band’s 20th anniversary in 1991, they did so in random order. I can’t quite remember how it broke down, but the label sent these out into the world in groups of four, with no rhyme or reason – ‘80s synth-pop next to ‘70s drama-rock next to the Flash Gordon soundtrack.

So I collected the Queen catalog in random order, as the remasters came out, and tried to fit them together into a picture of this band that was like no other I’d ever heard. I was a pretty dramatic kid in high school, and Queen fit that mold perfectly for me. If Queen were anything, they were hugely dramatic. They didn’t just make records, they threw extravagant musical parties, and invited every style and genre they could think of to come on in and have a good time.

Right at the center of this maelstrom was Freddie Mercury, the first musician I honestly idolized. He was flamboyant, he was ridiculous, he was outsize, he was clearly omnisexual, he was campy and grand and silly and brilliant. But at 17, I didn’t care about any of that. All I cared about was this: Freddie Mercury could play and sing anything. Anything at all. His voice… man, his voice. He’s rightly considered one of rock’s all-time finest singers. He was almost supernaturally gifted, and no matter what type of songs he chose to sing, he would have been a superstar.

And with Queen, genre walls just didn’t exist. They were the first band I encountered whose albums played like mix tapes. From crushing rock to swinging jazz to funk to disco to opera, they threw everything at the wall, chucked everything into their massive cosmic blender and hit puree. They were phenomenally democratic – all four members brought songs to the table, and sang lead, and their differing influences rubbed up against one another. You’d think it would be uncomfortable and jarring, but every time, they made their insane diversity work.

The best, most over-the-top amazing songs on every Queen album came from Mercury. He’s the one who brought in Broadway and ballet and ‘30s balladry, and later, reggae and rap. He was, in a lot of ways, my gateway to a dozen different styles I may not have explored otherwise.

And Freddie Mercury’s death from AIDS in November of 1991 was the first celebrity demise to truly affect me. I remember waking up to my alarm clock radio that morning, and hearing the news – one day after he’d announced his disease to the world, he succumbed to it. I walked around in a numb haze that day, trying to come to grips with the idea that there would be no more new Queen music. (This was before posthumous LP Made in Heaven was announced, of course.)

I’ve been listening to the Queen catalog for 20 years now, and my appreciation of it has only deepened. I still have never come across another band like them. Ironically, I think I understand and appreciate the ridiculousness of a lot of what they did now more than I did at 17. When you’re young, the world is full of outsize dramatic gestures, but as you get old and you calm down, those gestures start to look like flailing.

Mercury’s never did, at least to me. Queen could be silly, sure – just check out the video for “I Want to Break Free,” which all but ended their career in America. But Mercury himself was a grandly dramatic person, and each of his excesses seemed to flow naturally from his personality. He was genuinely a big ball of ideas, and he wrote them large. Sometimes his tendency to try anything failed him, but more often than not, it worked, and it painted a picture of a born performer showing you his heart in the only way he knew how.

This year is Queen’s 40th anniversary, and in celebration, the surviving band members are remastering the catalog again, and releasing it with oodles of bonus tracks. And so I am dutifully buying it all one more time, and joyfully making my way through it. This time, they’re doing it right – three batches of five studio albums, all in chronological order (with, presumably, the live records to follow).

So this is God Save the Queen, my three-part journey through Queen’s studio catalog – one column for each batch of reissues, as they come out. I’ve spent the last few days with the first five. The bottom line is, of course, that you should buy all of these immediately, if you like campy and wonderful pop music. These early records chart a progression that leads to the ecstatic explosion of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and it’s music no other band could have made.

Here’s my attempt at telling you why.

Queen (1973).

One thing I’d forgotten is what a rock band Queen was when they started out. Man alive, does this first record rock. It is stripped-down and raw and bare, even in this spit-shined new version, and Brian May’s guitar is everywhere. You could almost call some of it metal, particularly “Modern Times Rock and Roll” and the progressive monster “Liar.” I remember thinking of this as Queen’s humble beginnings, but there’s nothing humble about this album at all.

“Keep Yourself Alive” announces itself right away, with May’s chugging guitar, but it’s Mercury’s supple voice, layered but not yet expanded into celestial choirs, that leaves the greatest impression. “Liar” is his tour-de-force here – he snarls and swoops and makes death-defying leaps with that voice. It’s just remarkable. But then listen to “Doing All Right,” where he achieves a restrained subtlety that’s simply beautiful.

I guess my initial teenage dismissal of this record had more to do with the fact that the band’s trademarks haven’t fully established themselves yet. May never constructs a guitar orchestra here, the band’s remarkable harmonies are present but not yet knock-you-down amazing, and Mercury rarely plays piano. But as a document of a phenomenally talented rock band just slamming its way through some powerhouse tunes – seriously, just listen to “Great King Rat” – this is monumental.

Queen II (1974).

Now this, this is where Queen starts to establish itself as a band like no other. I recall having an argument with someone many years ago over whether the early, fairies-and-giants Queen was better than the later synths-and-love-songs Queen. I was vehemently on the side of the later work. I don’t know if I’d take the same position now, as much as I love that stuff. Queen II is just supernaturally good, fairy tale lyrics and all.

The whole thing, in fact, plays like a dark fairy story. The first half of the album is more restrained, coming as it does largely from the mind of Brian May, but it’s still magical. It’s here that May really establishes his guitar-as-orchestra trademark, overdubbing himself dozens of times. The opening instrumental “Procession” is almost entirely May’s guitar, and he makes those six strings weep on the colossally gorgeous “White Queen (As It Began).”

But it’s the second half that sends Queen II into the stratosphere, and it’s all Freddie Mercury. He wrote all of the final six songs on this album, and I’m not sure there’s a stretch of Queen music anywhere else that lays out his particular genius like this one does. It never stops moving – “Ogre Battle” is a nimble epic that glides right into the manic “The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke,” and then dissipates into the lovely “Nevermore.” And then there is “The March of the Black Queen,” a masterpiece of flailing piano and soaring vocals that could easily have spun out into silliness. But it doesn’t.

I still don’t have much of an emotional attachment to Queen II – the Brothers Grimm stuff really keeps me at a distance. But listening to it, you can hear the band gaining confidence by the note, crafting its identity out of ambition and sheer joy. I didn’t have a lot of time for Queen II when I was a teen, but now I consider it one of early Queen’s best records.

Sheer Heart Attack (1974).

I remain amazed that they put this one out the same year as Queen II. It’s a more grounded effort, but somehow more ambitious than its predecessor, and it sounds like it took years of work to craft.

While the first two albums never found Queen straying too far from the ‘70s pomp-rock mold, Sheer Heart Attack is all over the place. It’s the first mixtape Queen album, nimbly leaping from one genre to the next, and blithely segueing all of those genres together into mad medleys. This is Queen’s most self-assured record yet, and it’s fitting that it’s the one on which they put away the fantasy lyrics and tell earthbound stories.

This is just the second half. It opens with “In the Lap of the Gods,” a massive bit of high drama, vocal harmonies spilling out all over. That slams into “Stone Cold Crazy,” an honest-to-god slab of molten metal (so convincing that Metallica didn’t change it at all when they covered it in 1990), which then stops short for a minute-long piano ditty called “Dear Friends.”

Then comes “Misfire,” a two-minute classic acoustic pop song, and it’s followed directly by “Bring Back That Leroy Brown,” a ‘30s-style jazz stomper, complete with ukulele, banjo and acoustic bass. Seriously, all it needs is a washboard, but the harmonies on this one are breathtaking. And then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, it segues from that into “She Makes Me,” a strummed ballad with a martial drum beat. The finale is “In the Lap of the Gods… Revisited,” tying it all together. But seriously, none of these songs sound even remotely like one another.

I remember listening to this all the way through for the first time in my car, and not being able to keep up with all the sharp left turns the band was throwing at me. (I handled the sharp turns on the road just fine, thank you.) Sheer Heart Attack still impresses me. Oh, and I didn’t even mention that it also includes “Killer Queen,” one of Mercury’s best singles. It’s also the only song I’ve ever stumped a piano bar player with. This album is just incredible.

A Night at the Opera (1975).

For many people, this is Queen’s finest hour. It’s difficult to argue. This album marked the apex of their studio ambitions – after this, they started stripping back, becoming ever so slightly more straightforward. But A Night at the Opera is an uncontrolled burst of anything-goes insanity, and if you’ve never heard it, you’re going to want to buckle up.

Diving through this again for the first time in a while, I’m struck anew by what a weird record it is. It’s one of Queen’s most successful albums, but the band was clearly not looking to shift units. This is a record that sequences venomous rant “Death on Two Legs” next to jazzy, field-of-flowers lilt “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon” next to deliriously silly ham-fisted rocker “I’m in Love With My Car” as if every band expects its fans to make these leaps.

Everybody stepped up on this one. John Deacon contributed “You’re My Best Friend,” a moment of electric-piano sweetness amidst the chaos. Brian May hit a home run with “’39,” a toe-tapping folk song about time-traveling space explorers, and composed a guitar jazz band score for the remarkable “Good Company.” And Roger Taylor wrote the aforementioned “I’m in Love With My Car,” perhaps the album’s silliest moment (and that is saying something), and then played it perfectly straight.

But it’s Mercury whose horizons just explode on this thing. Vocally, he’s never sounded better – listen to the a capella section of “The Prophet’s Song” for some of the best rock vocals you’re likely to hear, and then be amazed and moved by his tender reading of “Love of My Life.” And there isn’t a more Freddie Mercury song than “Seaside Rendezvous.” That one has a kazoo choir. Really.

It all leads to Mercury’s masterpiece, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which has certainly been overplayed. (Damn you, Wayne and Garth.) But try listening with fresh ears. This thing is unbelievable, more like a particularly complex show tune than a rock anthem. Just the vocal arrangement alone is enough to drop your jaw, and when the operatic section crashes into a full-on rock explosion, it’s an iconic moment. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the moment when Queen went so far over the top they couldn’t see land anymore, and I’m glad they took their moment and seized it.

A Night at the Opera holds up brilliantly, 36 years after its release. I’ve heard a lot of operatic rock bands in my time, but I’ve never heard another album like this one. I remember driving my friend Chris around in my car and listening to the second half of this album one afternoon, by way of explaining why I love this band so much. It still holds true. Is this their best record? I still can’t choose, but I will say this: they never hit these heights of pure ambition again.

A Day at the Races (1976).

In thinking about it, this may be the first Queen album I heard. It was either this or News of the World. Yes, A Day at the Races is a clear sequel, taking its name from another Marx Brothers movie and arriving with a similar cover design. But no, this isn’t A Night at the Opera part two. This is the pullback, the more subdued follow-up, the surest sign that Queen is not going to give us another “Bohemian Rhapsody,” ever.

But hell, A Day at the Races is a splendid record in its own right. It’s more meat-and-potatoes than its predecessor, but it still glimmers and shines. It opens with a more traditional ‘70s rocker (“Tie Your Mother Down”), and includes straightforward pop tunes “Long Away,” “You and I” and closing ballad “Teo Torriattte.” There are no startling moments in any of these songs, but they’re all very enjoyable.

And it’s not like Freddie Mercury is silent. “The Millionaire Waltz” is wonderful, showing off his godlike falsetto and bringing in some of those operatic harmonies. “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy” is the record’s most toe-tapping moment – it’s truly awesome. And “You Take My Breath Away” is almost inhumanly beautiful. It may be Mercury’s most fragile and gorgeous track, and May’s whispering guitars add immeasurably.

And then there is “Somebody to Love,” the gospel-pomp hit single. I love this song, completely and unabashedly. Mercury sings the living hell out of it, too. (He even sells the line “They say I’ve got a lot of water in my brain.”) “Somebody to Love” makes me grin like an idiot every time. If that’s not the mark of wondrous pop music, I don’t know what is.

So yeah, A Day at the Races is a bit of a comedown after A Night at the Opera’s brilliant excess. But it’s a solid, thoroughly entertaining effort. I have great affection for this album, and I still come away from it satisfied.

I haven’t mentioned any of the new bonus tracks. Each of the remasters comes with a bonus EP of demos, b-sides and remixes, and they’re all worth hearing. I’m especially fond of the a capella mixes of “Leroy Brown” and the operatic section of “Bohemian.” Hearing these vocal arrangements unadorned is revelatory. And it’s also good to have “Mad the Swine” and “See What a Fool I’ve Been.”

Queen’s UK label has announced the second run of reissues (from News of the World to Hot Space) for next month. We should get them over here shortly, so look for another installment of God Save the Queen soon.

I know some of you follow this column for news about me and my life, so I thought I would tell you that I officiated my sister Emily’s wedding last weekend. It was a perfect outdoor ceremony, and I was honored to be the one to say “man and wife.” I’ve written quite a bit more about it on Patch this week here. Congrats and love to Emily and Bill, as they start their life together.

I’m very tired, so I’m calling it a night. Next week, some forgotten gems from this year, including the Foo Fighters, The Head and the Heart, and Explosions in the Sky. 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’s nothing quite like that first time. Sliding it in, pushing the right buttons to get things rolling, and then lying back and enjoying yourself for half an hour or more…

I am, of course, talking about listening to a new CD. (Why, what were you thinking?) The first time through is crucial – sure, if it’s a good album, you’ll pick more things up as you spin it again, but the songs will never again take you by surprise. That first time through, you’re sailing without a compass, driving without a map. And it can be an amazing experience.

This week, I thought I’d try to share that experience. I’m going to review three new albums by writing down my first impressions of them as they play. I’ll write intro and outro paragraphs, of course, but the bulk of the review will be live-blogged. I’ve chosen three albums that all hover around the 30-minute mark, too, so these reviews shouldn’t get out of control. And anyone cynically suggesting that this method will allow me to wrap up this week’s column in less than two hours wouldn’t be off the mark either. Hey, I have to do something to get back on schedule.

With any luck, this will offer up three more reasons why 2011 is a great year for new music. But I don’t know, since I haven’t heard any of these records yet. Let’s remedy that, right now.

* * * * *

Sloan turns 20 this year.

That’s kind of an incredible statement, I think. The Nova Scotian quartet began as snarky pseudo-grunge-poppers, issuing their debut EP in 1992. Their first kind-of hit was “Underwhelmed,” a pun-filled college rock ditty covered in distortion and reverb. But by the time they stripped all that grunge away for their second, Twice Removed, they were no longer darlings of the U.S. music scene.

It was a thoroughly different story in their native Canada, where they have endured as one of that country’s most popular bands. These days they sound like killer ‘70s power pop, like they own a time machine and whenever they need a new record, they just pop back 40 years and grab one. They’ve made nine wildly different albums, and all of them are worth hearing. And now they’ve issued the tenth, their 20th anniversary party, called The Double Cross. (Or, XX. You know, as in 20.)

Sloan works in an interesting way – all four members write and sing their own songs, and usually produce them as well. Then they weave those disparate recordings into a seamless album, and I mean seamless – most Sloan albums segue from first tune to last. (That was a particularly fantastic trick on their 2006 effort, the 30-song Never Hear the End of It.) I wasn’t too thrilled with the last Sloan record, 2008’s Parallel Play. Will The Double Cross make up for it? Let’s find out.

Man, do I love this first track. “Follow the Leader” is bassist Chris Murphy’s tune, and it sounds like a long-lost nugget from the ‘60s psychedelic rock days. Crappy-sounding drums, killer acoustic riff, pizzicato organ hits, and a melody to kill for. It’s superb, and hopefully sets the tone. “Leader” does an about-face at the end, and segues (yes!) into “The Answer Was You.” Guitarist Jay Ferguson picks up the melodic baton and runs with it. This song is delightful, and has some nice mellotron. Matthew Sweet would like this one. It sounds more like an album-ender than a second track, but I dig it.

“Unkind” comes in as “Answer” fades out, and the electric guitars chime in with a classic-sounding power pop riff. “Are you ready?” sings guitarist Patrick Pentland, always the meat-and-potatoes rock guy in the band. This song is simple yet effective, landing somewhere between toe-tapping and boring. Great harmonized guitar in the middle eight, though. It ends cold, too, breaking up the segues. But now here’s Murphy’s “Shadow of Love,” and it’s awesome – a ‘60s-style raveup with some jangly guitars. The organ’s back, and it adds immeasurably to the feel. Love this one.

That was fast. Less than two minutes later, we’re in drummer Andrew Scott’s “She’s Slowing Down Again.” Scott is the guy who writes the slower epics, and this one sounds like it fits that mold. Pianos, swirly guitars, harmonies, nice psychedelic melody. Oh, and he lets Murphy take lead in the bridge. Very nice. Another full stop before Ferguson’s delicate “Green Gardens, Cold Montreal.” This is really nice, and the chorus, with its starts and stops, is memorable. In all, though, this record is flying by a little too quickly for me so far.

Bam! “It’s Plain to See” erupts with a Merseybeat bang. This is Scott’s song, I think, and it rocks. This is one thing I love about Sloan – when they want to sound like the ‘60s, they sound like the ‘60s. The tambourines are just right, the guitars have exactly the right tone, the mix is perfectly vintage. You have to hear Murphy’s bass on this one too. It’s great. “Your Daddy Will Do” comes in right after, and is weirder, kind of a ‘70s AM radio thing. The Sloaners are trading off lead vocals, something that rarely happens. It makes me smile, though – makes me feel like they’re going to be around a while longer. Wow, the middle eight on this one is great, very Jeff Lynne.

Four drumstick clicks announces Pentland’s “I’ve Gotta Know,” another one Matthew Sweet would like. Four stomping chords, harmonies, good chorus, in and out like a sudden storm. And the record is three-fourths over. Too fast! I already like “Beverly Terrace,” with its thumping bass drum and piano figure. Ferguson sings this one, and it sounds like Spoon. Some surprising synthesizers in there too. And the harmonies! Love them.

Wow, these songs are over too quickly. We’re already on track 11, “Traces,” which sounds like a cool spy thriller thing, with that Ray Manzarek organ sound. It’s Scott, in Bob Dylan mode, rattling off lyrics like bullets. Good stuff here. “Seems like time’s agin us.” Yes, “agin.” Really smooth chorus, too. This one’s practically an epic at 4:30. And now were in the final track, “Laying So Low,” which opens with soft string sounds, and slides into gingerly-strummed electric guitar. It’s Murphy in heart-on-sleeve mode, crooning a simple mid-tempo benediction that builds up to a fine conclusion They were right to end with this.

Sloan has delivered once again. But man, that was over fast. Thirty-minute albums were perfectly acceptable in the ‘60s, but still get a bit of a head-scratch from me now. But beyond wanting more (and more and more) of this, I really enjoyed The Double Cross. Twenty years in, and Sloan remains one of the best pop bands around. I’ll be humming most of these songs for days.

* * * * *

I mentioned last week that Fleet Foxes is a band I discovered thanks to my new policy of paying more attention to new acts. The Antlers is another. I bought this New York trio’s label debut, Hospice, expecting the soaring guitars and huge choruses Pitchfork promised me in their review. But what I got was so much better – a full-on concept record about letting the dead move on, and learning to live your life again. It was so good, so powerful that it reduced me to tears.

At the time, I sort of hoped the Antlers would never make another record, because Hospice is such a singular achievement. But they went and did it anyway. The new one is called Burst Apart, and as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have a uniting theme. It does have my favorite cover illustration of the year so far, though. I haven’t heard a note of this album yet, and I’m a little scared to press play. Which I’ve just done, so hang on.

OK, the first thing I need to do is realize that this is not Hospice, and not judge it on that scale. The opening track, “I Don’t Want Love,” starts with a pretty typical guitar and piano progression, and Peter Silberman’s fine falsetto. It’s an all right beginning, but nothing that makes me sit up and take notice yet, even with the ringing guitars in the chorus. Definitely some U2 influence here, and I like the breakdown near the end. Silberman has a truly great voice.

“French Exit” starts off with the electric piano again, and some muted guitar. I like the web this one is weaving. “Every time we speak, you are spitting in my mouth, if I don’t take you somewhere else, I’m gonna pull my teeth right out.” Um, what? This song transforms into something more dramatic partway through, but slides back into the repetitive verse. Not my favorite Antlers song by a long shot. “Parentheses” is already more interesting, its synth noises giving way to a breakbeat and Silberman’s slinky falsetto. The bass line is similarly slinky. “So close up your knees and I’ll close your parentheses.” Great line. Not much of a song here, though.

“No Widows” starts with a programmed beat and some synth blips, but it quickly evolves into a Depeche Mode-esque thing that I quite like. Thing is, this is another one that just doesn’t change. It’s the same few chords again and again, and there’s no chorus. It feels already like this is the kind of album I will have to listen to a few more times to really appreciate. Right now I’m reviewing it the way I would any other album – on immediacy and melody – and it’s coming up short. But it’s long on atmosphere, which helps it.

Now we’re on “Rolled Together,” which starts out just as slowly – little bass lick, droning organ, Silberman’s high voice. This is the song that gives the album its name: “Rolled together but about to burst apart.” It’s a nice shuffling groove, made obvious when the drums kick in, but again, this is a song that doesn’t go anywhere. And that’s half of this underwhelming record. Here now is the oddly-titled “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out.” It has some nice banjo, and I like the drum entrance. This is probably my favorite so far, simple though it is. Did I say I liked the banjo? Because I really like the banjo. And the big buildup to the end is great.

Here is the instrumental “Tiptoe,” a slow-and-low soundscape. I like this one too – the muted trumpet is a very nice touch. Finally, it feels like this thing is going somewhere. “Hounds” starts gently, with that reverbed electric guitar sound I like so much. If Julee Cruise were singing this, it would be perfect for Twin Peaks. I think I am starting to get into the Antlers’ groove – this song isn’t going much of anywhere either, but I’m enjoying it. And the best part of having Silberman on your team is you don’t need to hire a female singer for the high notes. Ah! Again with the trumpet. It really works.

I think what I’m liking about this, if I’m liking anything, is the enveloping mood. “Corsicana” keeps it going with more of that guitar sound, and some sky-high keyboard noises. Again, no chorus, but I’m caring less and less. I think if I were to press play again right now, with my brain used to what the Antlers are doing, I would probably like Burst Apart quite a bit more than I did this first time. In fact, the final track, “Putting the Dog to Sleep,” is really moving me right now. “Prove to me that I’m not gonna die alone…” This one breaks up the atmosphere with some chiming guitar bursts, but it’s still slow and moody. A really nice closer.

So this is a strange thing to say in a column about first impressions, but I think I need to listen to Burst Apart a few more times to truly absorb it. This album casts a spell, but it doesn’t do so immediately – it took me about half the record to start figuring out how to listen to it. It’s not Hospice, and might have benefitted from an overarching story, but it does tread some of the same territory. Once I started getting used to it, I quite liked it. So we’ll see how listen number two (and three and four) goes.

* * * * *

And finally, we have the Cars.

Yes, there is a new Cars album – their first in 24 years. Yes, the four surviving original members are back. Of all the reunions happening lately, this is the one I can scarcely believe is real. (Well, if Fugazi gets back together, they’ll win.) The album is called Move Like This, it’s 10 songs, and they were all written by Ric Ocasek. This is legit.

So let’s hear how it is.

Right off the bat it sounds like the Cars. “Blue Tip” starts with synthy bass, and then some synthy blips, and an all-around synthy sound. Ric Ocasek sounds the same – he’s doing that stagger-speak-sing thing he did in the ‘80s. The chorus sounds like those 24 years never happened. It’s a strong start. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but with the ‘80s in full revival, this perfect impression of themselves makes sense. And the song is over very quickly, just like old Cars tunes.

Now here’s “Too Late,” and we’re in mid-tempo mode. I don’t know if that sing-speak thing is something Ocasek does on purpose, but it screams Reagan era to me. This one is such a huge step down in quality it’s kind of ridiculous. It doesn’t really go anywhere, and the weakness in Ocasek’s voice – he is 62 now – drags this down. The synth solo is nice, but the song isn’t worth it. Track three is “Keep On Knocking,” and it smacks you with its dirty processed guitars right up front. But maybe I’m just not in the mood for this right now, because this song isn’t doing it for me either.

Things slow down for track four, “Soon,” and slowing down is exactly what this album doesn’t need at this point. Yep, this one’s boring too. Some nice Edge-like guitar stuff, some moody synth beds, but a weak melody, sung weakly. I like the buildup and breakdown in the bridge. I don’t really like anything else here. “Sad Song” is already better, its clap-enhanced beat and keyboard flourishes reminiscent of the band’s glory days. Again, ain’t much to it, though. It’s kind of sad that this is the album’s finest moment so far.

So we’re halfway through Move Like This and I’m not having as much fun as I’d hoped. Track six is called “Free,” and it has that synth bass pulse the Cars used to do all the time. And… oh my, is that a guitar riff? About time. It’s half-hearted, but I like it. And a chorus? Yes! This is the best song on the record so far. I like the bridge too. The record may be picking up.

The guitars stick around for the mid-tempo “Drag On Forever.” Here’s hoping the title’s a misnomer. Can’t say I like the chorus much, and the single-note lead guitar thing is grating. This sounds like a demo, which is fascinating, given how rich Ocasek is, and the fact that they hired Jacknife Lee to co-produce. “Must this drag on forever?” Indeed. Track eight is “Take Another Look,” and it sounds like the quintessential Cars synth ballad, bongos-in-a-box and all. It’s not as well-written as their ‘80s ballads, though. The clean guitar sound is nice, and the harmonies – in short supply on this album – are welcome. But the song is a shrug.

Home stretch. Here’s “It’s Only,” which opens with guitars and keyboards fighting for space. I kind of like the synth figure in this one, but the song isn’t moving me. Yeah, I’ve been saying that all along, but it’s true. These songs aren’t memorable. The best Cars songs are ones you sang all week after hearing them for the first time. “My Best Friend’s Girl.” “Magic.” “Drive.” Even “You Are the Girl.” Nothing of that quality here, alas. Final track is “Hits Me,” and it’s just in the same vein as most of the others. Decent beat, guitars and synthesizers, no great chorus, weak overall everything.

I don’t know what I was expecting from this, but I’m let down. I think I wanted a fun new wave album, and I got a less-than-stellar effort by a band trying to act like their younger selves. Move Like This could have been a good effort – all the pieces are there, except for strong songs. If the Cars make another record, I hope they spend more time on the writing. The sound, Ocasek’s strained singing aside, is in place, and it pushes the right buttons. But the songs… not so much.

* * * * *

All right. Next week, catching up on some new stuff. 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 heard it again the other day.

Some miserable pundit was droning on about what a terrible year this has been for new music. And it made me wonder if he was living in Bizarro World. This isn’t one of those cases where my tastes are different from the rest of the world. By all objective measures, 2011 has been extraordinary so far, and hearing someone say the opposite is like listening to the Flat Earth Society.

Let me try to give you the experience of my 2011 thus far, so you know where I’m coming from. Start with the new Decemberists on January 18, and the new Iron and Wine on January 25. Neither one are masterpieces, but they’re solid, entertaining pieces of music that kicked the year off well. Then, on February 15, PJ Harvey blew the doors open with her audio war documentary Let England Shake. This would be, in any other year, the indisputable number one record.

But 2011 was just getting warmed up. On February 18, Radiohead put out The King of Limbs, the first of their electro-clacks-and-whirs records I liked a lot. And then on March 8, R.E.M. released their best album in 20 years, Collapse Into Now. Somewhere in there I discovered The Joy Formidable and The Boxer Rebellion, both of whom put out amazing records this year.

And then! On April 12, Elbow gave us Build a Rocket Boys, their finest work. I didn’t have much time to absorb it, though, because on the same day, Paul Simon graced us with So Beautiful or So What, a late-career masterwork that still dominates my CD player. And shortly after that, I got the Violet Burning’s three-CD stunner The Story of Our Lives, and have been playing that to death ever since.

These are just the highlights of the first four months, people. I haven’t mentioned great little records like Eisley’s The Valley and Teddy Thompson’s Bella and Cut/Copy’s Zonoscope and the Dears’ Degeneration Street, which would deserve all the praise in the world in a normal year, but have been given short shrift in this one. If the first few months of awesome were all 2011 had in store, it would still be a great year. But we’re just getting rolling, I think.

Want proof? I have it for you this week. It’s called Helplessness Blues, and it’s the sophomore effort from Fleet Foxes. And it’s incredible.

Some years ago, I started paying more attention to new bands than I had in the past. I’ve always been one drawn to breadth of achievement, meaning catalogs that stretch back 20 or 30 years, and I unfairly dismissed many new artists as young punks with no idea what they were doing. Since I decided to widen my perspective, I’ve discovered many bands and songwriters I might have overlooked in years past. But none have thrilled me more than Fleet Foxes.

I really didn’t know what to expect back in 2008 when I spun this Seattle sextet’s debut for the first time. What I got, though, was timeless excellence. I have no idea how this band has done it, but they’ve come up with an alchemical combination of obvious influences – Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Mamas and the Papas, English folk music, Simon and Garfunkel – that transcends them. Fleet Foxes songs sound as old as time itself, like a river deep and wide that has been traveling its course for centuries. This is music your grandkids and grandparents will enjoy in equal measure. It is beholden to no time, no trend, no fashion.

Oh, and Robin Pecknold and his band write some great songs, too. They’ve come up with 12 more on Helplessness Blues, an album that changes little from the first, but at the same time deepens the Fleet Foxes experience. The multi-part harmonies, the Brian Wilson vocal arrangements, the delicate acoustic guitars, the songs that fold and change in the middle, ending up in a different part of the woods than when they began – it’s all here, seemingly untouched. And yet, this album is somehow richer, and definitely darker.

Exhibit A: “The Plains/Bitter Dancer,” an epic at 5:54. It opens with an expanse of harmonies, unfolding like clouds over a blackening sky as the guitars circle round beneath them, but just as you get used to that, everything drops away, and the melody begins, tentatively, over fragile finger-picking. When the piano slides in, it’s one of my favorite moments on the album. But the song isn’t done – as the flutes play the main melody out, the Foxes announce a stunning coda, their voices coalescing as the band erupts (well, gently erupts) behind them. It’s amazing, bringing all the elements of that first record together and expanding them.

With all that, it may sound like Helplessness Blues is a more difficult listen, but this isn’t the case. The title track, sequenced next, is as simple as strummy folk songs come, Pecknold’s shaft-of-light voice irresistibly coaxing the melody forward. “And I don’t, I don’t know who to believe, I’ll get back to you someday soon, you will see…” Even more sparse is “Blue Spotted Tail,” perhaps the album’s most beautiful moment. Over a wispy background, Pecknold asks everything that’s on his mind: “Why is life made only for to end? Why do I do all this waiting, then?” It’s the most direct lyric on an album full of similar searching.

At the opposite end of the sonic spectrum, there is the eight-minute “The Shrine/An Argument,” the most complex Fleet Foxes song to date. Pecknold’s voice breaks as he sings “sunlight over me no matter what I do” – he somehow makes that line sound like a cry to an unjust god. The song winds through several sections, including one full of atonal horns and scratchy strings, and by its end, the notion that Fleet Foxes are some hippie folk band has been thoroughly dealt with.

I wasn’t sure how Fleet Foxes would be able to follow up their debut, one of the finest records I’ve heard in years. I understand making Helplessness Blues was a long and arduous process – the band scrapped an entire record’s worth of recordings last year, opting to start over. It was worth all the time spent. This is the rare sophomore album that holds on to the debut’s core sound, all the while charting new territory. It’s not a radical change in direction, nor is it a clone. It’s a restatement of purpose, a beautiful deepening of everything Fleet Foxes is. It’s also fantastic.

* * * * *

But wait, there’s more.

This week also saw the long-awaited release of Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, the eighth album from the Beastie Boys. Yes, they’ve been making records since 1982. Yes, this is only their eighth long-player. I was surprised too, given how indelible their mark on the scene is. I can’t imagine a world without the Beastie Boys. Nor would I want to.

I’ve often said this, but I wouldn’t know how to go about pitching the Beastie Boys to a record label now. Three Jewish guys from New York who used to play hardcore, but settled on old-school hip-hop, with live instruments and some funk instrumentals thrown in. It’s almost hard to believe such a band exists, but here they are.

If they’d never done anything except Paul’s Boutique, their 1989 samples-and-rhymes masterwork, they’d still be important. But from there they redefined themselves each time out, taking as much time as they needed between records, painstakingly crafting them to sound as random and freewheeling as possible. It’s been four years since their last one, the instrumental jam The Mix-Up, and nine years since To the Five Boroughs, the last time we heard Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D. take the mic.

Granted, the Beasties had plenty of reasons for the delay, most notably MCA’s 2009 cancer scare. Hot Sauce Committee was initially announced as a double record, to be released in halves. But MCA’s cancer treatments delayed Part One indefinitely, and most of the tracks slated for that record have ended up on Part Two. (Chances are very good there will never be a Hot Sauce Committee Part One. Just roll with it.) What we have here is a single album built from the raw material of a double, and as you might expect, it’s a very consistent effort.

But here’s my problem: when did consistency become a good thing for a Beastie Boys record? What I liked about their earlier stuff, particularly the Check Your Head to Hello Nasty period, was the sheer unpredictability. I had no idea what the Boys were going to throw at me from one track to the next. They’d be sharing the mic with Q-Tip one second, slamming out a hardcore tune about bad sportsmanship the next, and shimmying their way through a slinky instrumental after that. On Nasty they sang ballads and collaborated with Lee “Scratch” Perry. They were all over the place.

Lately, though, they’ve been putting their sound into boxes. Their hardcore past is all but forgotten. Five Boroughs was a hip-hop album, start to finish. The Mix-Up made an entire CD out of those instrumental bits they used to scatter around like confetti. And now Hot Sauce Committee brings them back to hip-hop for 16 tracks, with little variation. There’s almost no fat on it, save for a couple of skits, but there’s nothing on it except for beats and rhymes.

That said, they’re awesome beats and rhymes, and the beats are mostly made with live instruments, a forgotten Beastie trademark. The record opens with “Make Some Noise,” a classic B-Boys track reminiscent of Check Your Head. The collaboration with Nas, “Too Many Rappers,” is an unmitigated delight. “Funky Donkey” is totally silly, yet satisfying, with some terrific percussion. “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win,” their collaboration with Santigold, rocks a reggae beat and does it with style. And “Lee Majors Come Again” can proudly stand with the best of their work – it’s the brashest, most propulsive thing they’ve done since “The Negotiation Limerick File.” As a Beastie Boys hip-hop record, this one is just great.

And the Boys haven’t lost their penchant for witty rhymes. Here are a couple of examples:

“Pass me the scalpel, I’ll make an incision, cut off the part of your brain that does the bitchin’, put it in formaldehyde and put it on the shelf so you can show it to your friends and say, ‘That’s my old self.’”

“I’m back on a roll, got total control, I flow like the water out your toilet bowl…”

“My lyrics spin round like a hurricane twister, so get your hologram on off of Wolf Blitzer…”

“I burn you to a crisp, sucker, back up off the toaster, I make you sick like at Kenny Roger’s Roaster…”

“Live round the clock like Disco Donut, I’m like a tailor, got the whole thing sewn up, or a proctologist, I move asses, got so much heat that I fog your mom’s glasses…”

“I go wooo like a fire engine, flashing lights to get your attention, stop sweating me about the weather, go shave a sheep and knit yourself a sweater…”

“You want to battle? Easy now, star, my DJ’s so nasty he needs a sneeze guard…”

And on and on. It’s like the 32 years since “Rapper’s Delight” never happened – it’s old-school braggadocio on a grand scale. I love it to bits. They’re never serious, and yet they’re serious as a heart attack. I wouldn’t have any idea how to go about creating a band like the Beastie Boys, but luckily, I don’t have to. Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is a welcome return for a band like no other, and if I sometimes wish it were a little less focused, it’s hard to quibble about that. It’s relentless, it’s fun, it’s the Beastie Boys. What else do you need to know?

* * * * *

Next week, some more 2011 awesomeness from Sloan, the Antlers and the Cars. 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.