In October of 2004, my life was in shambles. I’d lost my lousy workaday job, I’d been unable to find any writing work, and was preparing to head halfway across the country and crawl back to my father for help. And in the midst of all this, Marillion came to my home town and played a tremendous show. And for about three hours, all was right with the world.

In June of 2012, I’m a lot more stable and comfortable with my life. Good job, good home, good people. I’m in a city about 1,000 miles away from my 2004 home, and that’s about as far as I feel from the person I was eight years ago. But one thing has remained the same – I still love Marillion, and I was intensely excited to see them for the first time since those faraway days in Baltimore.

I was able to catch both nights of the band’s stop at Park West in Chicago, one of the best live music venues I’ve ever been in. And they were astoundingly good. Marillion has somehow mastered the art of creating complex, cerebral music that heads right for the soul – emotional head music, if you will – and I can’t even begin to explain the awe and wonder that goes along with hearing something like “This Strange Engine” live. They played the massive “Neverland” both nights, and I felt like I was floating six feet off the ground.

There’s a new Marillion album coming, called Sounds That Can’t Be Made. The band premiered two songs off of it – the pulsating “Power,” and the more down-home rock tune “Lucky Man.” I liked them both, especially “Power,” but the band members said these were just the easiest two to play, and to rehearse for the tour. The new record contains three songs that break the 10-minute mark, they said, and bassist Pete Trewavas said some of the tunes on there will “blow your mind.”

Oh, yeah, didn’t I mention? I got to hang out with the band after the Friday show, thanks to my good friend Jeff Elbel, who reviewed it for Big Takeover Magazine. I’m always sort of awkward and reserved in those situations, but I did shake Trewavas’ hand, and listened as Jeff talked to guitarist Steve Rothery about space travel for about 20 minutes. That was fun and surreal. And I got a picture with drummer Ian Mosley, who only came down to see us after much cajoling. It was a huge amount of fun.

I remain grateful that I found this band, and overjoyed that they continue to make music that moves me. Over these two nights, I got to hear most of the Marillion songs I love: “Out of This World,” “Afraid of Sunlight,” all 18 minutes of “Ocean Cloud,” “The Invisible Man” (twice), “The Great Escape,” “Happiness Is the Road,” “Easter,” and on and on. As Jeff said after the second show, they’re a miracle band, and the fact that they’re still around after more than 30 years and still at the top of their game is simply incredible. Good show, boys. Come back soon.

* * * * *

Coincidentally, it’s been nearly as long since we’ve heard from Fiona Apple.

Her last record, Extraordinary Machine, made headlines for Apple’s tussle with Epic Records, and the decision to scrap the Jon Brion-produced version of the album in favor of a more commercial one by Mike Elizondo. At the time, many people (including me) chastised her for not sticking to her guns, for caving in and reworking an exciting, idiosyncratic album into a less interesting, more palatable thing. Extraordinary Machine Version 2.0 was still wonderful, but you could smell compromise all over it.

“Compromise” is a word no one will ever use to describe Apple’s just-released fourth album. Start with its title, in full: The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do. It’s no 90-word monster like the poem that adorned her second album, but it’s a mouthful. But a thoughtful one – an idler wheel is a piece of machinery that doesn’t seem to move, yet controls a number of other moving parts. It’s a metaphor, she says, for people like her who don’t seem to be doing anything with their time, but are really taking everything in and quietly creating.

As put off as I expect Epic was with the title of this record, I’m sure they were even more taken aback by its contents. This is… well, uncompromising is probably the best word for it. Even fans of her previous work will find this one almost defiantly unlikable, at least on first listen. It’s minimalist and difficult, comprised almost entirely of dissonant jazz chords and brittle, strange melodies, delivered with a much rawer tone than Apple’s ever allowed on record before. Many of these songs consist of piano, percussion and voice, and that’s it.

And also? It’s brilliant. These songs are miles ahead of any she’s written, complicated and painfully honest and quite unlike anything she’s done. It’s an album that reveals its pleasures gradually. Your first time through, you’ll be mystified, shaking your head, wondering why this record was released in this condition. It won’t make any sense. You’ll walk away befuddled, confused, and maybe a little angry.

But stay with it, and The Idler Wheel will reward you. Opener “Every Single Night,” for instance, is one of the least immediately appealing things here, a strange jazz ballad with virtually no instruments. Acoustic bass, vibes and piano, all playing single, ringing notes while Apple lets loose with that big, bold voice. She allows it to crack and wither in places, so when her double-tracked booming hits on the sort-of chorus, it’s striking. It’s a song you could study for weeks.

Many of the tracks on The Idler Wheel are like that. “Daredevil” sounds like it was surreptitiously recorded at a rehearsal between Apple and drummer Charlie Drayton. It’s all plunking piano and tickled drums, and at one point, Apple screams her little torn and frayed throat out. (The moments on this album where Apple sounds most out of control, vocally speaking, are among my favorites. They just show how much control she really has.) “Valentine” is an easier pill to swallow, even though it’s just as minimal. “I’m a tulip in a cup, I stand no chance of growing up,” Apple sings, and it’s the first time on the album she gives us what you’d call a recognizable melody.

“Jonathan” is, yes, about Jonathan Ames, whom Apple dated from 2007 to 2010. It’s also one of the most complex and gorgeous songs here. While Apple picks out a piano melody that probably makes perfect sense in her head, Drayton builds little percussion sculptures behind her. “I don’t want to talk about anything,” Apple mutters, before referring to Ames as “a captain of a capsized ship.” But she turns her critical eye on herself on the grand “Left Alone.” Over a galloping piano-drum duet, she wails, “How can I ask anyone to love me when all I do is beg alone?” Drayton positively shines on this song – his drum parts qualify as orchestration.

“Werewolf” is the album’s most accessible moment, which isn’t a very high bar to clear. But it’s a fantastic song with some splendid lyrics: “I could liken you to a werewolf the way you left me for dead, but I admit I provided a full moon, I could liken you to a shark the way you bit off my head, but then again, I was waving around a bleeding open wound…” Even though it’s the most tuneful song here, it never goes where you’d expect. By this point on the album, the style is settling in – it’s piano and drums again, with some odd feral screaming mixed in over the second half. You’ll find yourself thinking that “Werewolf” should be the single, and then you’ll catch yourself, because it sounds nothing like any single ever released in the history of anything.

Apple gets her best line out in “Regret”: “I ran out of white dove’s feathers to soak up the hot piss that comes from your mouth every time you address me.” That’s the chorus, and she resists the temptation to venomously spit it out. “Regret” is nearly ambient, in fact, its subtle piano chord changes barely breaking its droning mood. “Anything We Want” sounds like a closing song, built on a rickety scaffold of percussion, some acoustic bass and barely-moving piano, but it leads to a lovely and memorable chorus. “And then we can do anything we want” is almost the mission statement of the album.

Yeah, she could have ended with that, but instead, she went with “Hot Knife,” which completely flips this album’s script. After nine songs of personal anguish and relationship woes, Apple hits us with four minutes of pure sexual longing, sung like the Andrews Sisters – she brings in Maude Margaret to croon the high harmonies, and double- and triple-tracks the voices into something of a choir. “I’m a hot knife, he’s a pat of butter, if I get a chance I’m gonna show him that he’s never gonna need another…” It’s a wry grin, a sweet and fun way to go out.

In some ways, I feel like this is Fiona Apple’s first real album. It’s the first one that sounds like she was in control from the start, the first one that feels completely free of commercial concerns. There isn’t a hint of compromise in the entire 42 minutes, and Apple’s sheer belief in these songs, and her ability to perform them this way, makes for riveting listening.

These are the best songs she’s written – she’s working on a whole other level here, far beyond anything she’s done. She took her time, she made the album she wanted to, and the result is a top-to-bottom stunner. You may feel confused and disoriented by this record at first, but don’t worry. It will pass. Fiona Apple’s been very good for a long time, but The Idler Wheel is the album on which she really shows us what she can do, if she’s left alone to do it.

* * * * *

All right, it’s time for the halftime report. You know the drill by now. Below you’ll find my current draft of the 2012 top 10 list – essentially, what it would look like were I forced to set it in stone right now. Thankfully, I’m not, and with new records from Aimee Mann, Muse, Yeasayer, Marillion, Bloc Party, Green Day, Minus the Bear, Animal Collective, Amanda Palmer and Devin Townsend on the way, this list will no doubt change before the end of the year.

But for now, here’s what we’re looking at.

#10. Beach House, Bloom.
#9. Andrea Dawn, Theories of How We Can Be Friends.
#8. Esperanza Spalding, Radio Music Society.
#7. John K. Samson, Provincial.
#6. Fiona Apple, The Idler Wheel.
#5. Rufus Wainwright, Out of the Game.
#4. Shearwater, Animal Joy.
#3. Bryan Scary, Daffy’s Elixir.
#2. Punch Brothers, Who’s Feeling Young Now.
#1. Lost in the Trees, A Church That Fits Our Needs.

All right. Next week, Rush and Sigur Ros. 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’ve spent an awful lot of time in this column talking about expectation. It’s kind of the cornerstone on which a relationship with art is based. I’ll give you my money for the next thing you do, because the last thing you did led me to expect great things. I may not give you my money if you’ve let me down a time or two. (Usually at least two, if not more.

Expectation is all about one’s history with the creators. For example, I went to see Prometheus the other day. It’s a gargantuan sci-fi movie, and I generally stay away from those, but I plunked down my $11 for a few reasons. It was co-written by Damon Lindelof, one of the architects of Lost, perhaps my favorite modern television show. It was directed by Ridley Scott, who is definitely hit or miss with me, but – and this is most important – it is a prequel to one of Scott’s finest films, Alien. All of this combined led me to sit in the dark for two and a half hours and experience the story.

And lo, it was terrible. An insane, poorly-reasoned story populated by characters that never once act like real human beings, all collapsing into a pretty CGI mess. Also, it includes one of the sickest scenes of the year, which I’m still seeing in my head. (You won’t be able to un-see it.) It kind of falls over on its face about three-quarters of the way through and never gets back up. And it deftly illustrates the danger of trying something just because of the people who made it.

Neither of the albums I have on tap this week are as bad as Prometheus. But they both sort of defy expectations in the same way. Both are follow-ups to records I liked – records that, in fact, both made my 2010 Top 10 List. And both are passable, but just not as good as I was hoping they would be.

I know I surprised a lot of people by praising Linkin Park’s A Thousand Suns so effusively. Well, nearly two years later, I stand by that praise. Linkin Park gets a bad rap, and they deserve a lot of it – their first three albums are full of the type of posturing nu-metal-rap hybrid stuff that makes my ears bleed. The band has an interesting lineup and the makings of a fascinating sound, but during their peak popularity years, they used those ingredients to make a toxic, mushy soup.

But A Thousand Suns, that record is awesome. It’s fearlessly experimental, putting aside the heavy guitars and letting loose with unrestrained imagination. It’s darkly political, and it goes places musically that you’d never expect Linkin Park to go. From the Floydian ambiance of “Robot Boy” to the tribal creeping fury of “When They Come for Me” to the whiplash-inducing dance-scream-blissout journey of “Blackout” (a song no other band would create), the Linkin Parkers shot for the moon on this album, and took several giant leaps forward.

Of course, change is hard, and a sizeable chunk of their fanbase hated A Thousand Suns. To me, they had two choices on the follow-up – retrench and rewrite Hybrid Theory to please the fans, or keep going, pushing boundaries, and make something that puts A Thousand Suns to shame. I’m sad to say they’ve picked Option C: try for something in the middle. And that never, ever works.

Linkin Park’s fifth album is called Living Things. Right from the start, you can tell they’re being less ambitious – the record clocks in at 37 minutes, and it’s a rapid-fire burst of short pop tunes. Not a one breaks the four-minute mark. Sonically, they’ve attempted to plow a middle ground between the adventurousness of A Thousand Suns and the familiar rap-rock of their past. The songs are mainly in the old Linkin style, with raps from Mike Shinoda sitting next to sung verses by Chester leading into huge singalong choruses, but the focus on electronic sounds remains. It feels a little like a remixed version of their older work, but the songs are better, more concise and clear.

The first three tracks, in fact, may be a signpost pointing toward the future of Linkin Park. “Lost in the Echo,” “In My Remains,” and the single, “Burn It Down,” bring back the more traditional rap-sing-scream of their most popular work, with a decidedly electro twist. The record gets a little more experimental from there, and some of it works, like the wistful ballad “Roads Untraveled,” while some of it just doesn’t, like the spluttering mess that is “Lies Greed Misery,” or the half-hardcore “Victimized.”

In fact, when the band stretches out this time, the results are less successful. Take “Until It Breaks,” a track unlike any they’ve ever done. It’s a shapeshifting epic in 3:43, starting with a loping rap and segueing nicely into a light Bennington chorus, then morphing through several other sections, concluding with a surprisingly ambient playout. The trouble is, none of it coheres. It’s a house of cards, ready to fall over at the slightest brush. This should be the track that proves that Linkin Park is a truly ambitious band, but instead it’s evidence for the prosecution.

There is one experiment that works very well, however – in fact, it’s the album’s best song. “Castle of Glass” feels like riding a mechanical horse through an Old West landscape, its double-time drums propelling a creepy, minor-key melody. It’s all synthesizers and Shinoda’s low, even voice, but it feels layered, deeper than it seems at first. It’s one of the few tracks here that aims for new territory, and claims it.

That said, this record is undoubtedly disappointing when compared with A Thousand Suns. I wanted them to travel further down that fruitful path, but instead they’ve decided to retreat. This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing – I like the fact that they’ve brought the more keyboard-driven sound back to the core of what they do. Living Things is not, on its own, a bad record, and had they released it right after Minutes to Midnight, I’d be hailing it as a fascinating step forward. But they didn’t. They released it after their best, most wildly creative work, and it can’t help but suffer in its shadow.

I have similar feelings about Jukebox the Ghost. In 2010, the Brooklyn trio released their second album, Everything Under the Sun. For most of that year, my well-informed friends (like Tony Shore and Dave Danglis) begged me to check it out, but it wasn’t until November or so that I gave it a spin. I spent a week kicking myself for not diving in earlier. Everything Under the Sun is a brilliant pop album, an out-of-nowhere stunner on the level of Ben Folds or Jellyfish. It’s that good.

And I missed it when it came out, and didn’t get the chance to give it a proper, go-get-this-now review. But I figured I’d catch them on the next cycle. Surely the next Jukebox album would be just as good, if not better?

Sadly, that’s not the case. But I don’t want to discourage you from picking it up. The third Jukebox album is called Safe Travels, and it’s quite good – it only suffers when placed next to its astounding predecessor. This time out, the songs are simpler, and the band has introduced a synth-y disco party vibe. That’s not in itself bad, but it is limiting. Where I felt the songs on Everything could (and did) go anywhere, the songs on Safe Travels stay within a couple of boxes. They’re fun boxes, though, and this album should do well for them.

Jukebox’s twin songwriters, Ben Thornewill and Tommy Siegel, use this effervescent backdrop to tackle some weighty issues on this record. Safe Travels is, in the main, a hopeful record about death and change. On the darkly funny “Dead,” Siegel asks how you know if you’ve passed on, or if you’re “stuck in a dull dream about nothing that never ends.” Thornewill takes that ball and runs with it on “Adulthood”: “I dare you to survive being grown for the rest of your life, from adulthood no one survives…”

It’s a record steeped in regret, and the lyrics are uniformly fantastic. It’s the music that suffers this time. “Adulthood,” for instance, deserved better than its vaguely martial, in-one-place tune. Again, it’s not bad – it’s perfectly hummable stuff, played with gusto. But the songs here pale in comparison to the melodic wonders on Everything Under the Sun. In some ways, this is a more grown-up album, and that suits its theme just fine. It’s just that a song like “Ghosts in Empty Houses,” fun as it is, isn’t in the same ballpark as one like “Half-Crazy.”

The album does get a lot more interesting in its final stretch. “Man in the Moon” is as pretty a song as these guys have given us, a brief acoustic song of longing. (And, yes, regret.) “Everybody Knows” is the catchiest and best song on this record, the only one that sounds like it would have fit on Everything. “Should never have let you go, everybody knows, everybody knows,” Thornewill sings over a backdrop the 1970s Paul McCartney would have adored. And it all leads to “The Spiritual,” the gospel-inflected closer, and a subtle prayer for death. The final words on the album are, “Let me go in peace.”

I do like Safe Travels. It’s a solid pop album with a lot on its mind, and should serve to break Jukebox the Ghost to a wider audience. It only suffers when held up to their last effort. Is that fair? Each album should be judged on its own merits, no question. But without Everything Under the Sun, I would not have been anticipating Safe Travels as much, and it might still be languishing unheard, along with so many others from this year. I moved it to the top of my stack because I expected greatness. I got pretty-goodness. Next time I may not care as much.

But don’t let that deter you. Check out Jukebox the Ghost. They’re a fine band, and Safe Travels is a fine record.

Next week, Fiona Apple. I don’t know what to say about it yet. I’d better figure it out, and fast. 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.

It’s something of a poorly-followed tradition around these parts that I take a week off in June for my birthday. I rarely actually take that week, but if you like, you can consider this short, personal entry as that miniature vacation.

This week, I want to talk about my Uncle Warren.

He was technically my great-uncle – he was my grandfather’s brother, the youngest of eight. People in my family jokingly refer to Warren and his siblings as the Dalton Gang, a nod to the famous Old West family. The historical Daltons were split into lawmen and outlaws, and the Dalton side of my family is actually related to the lawmen side. Which makes sense – Warren was mischievous, but there wasn’t a touch of outlaw in him.

I, of course, only ever knew him as a kindly old man. But he had a long life before I came along, and I feel so blessed that I got to hear about some of it. When I was growing up, my Uncle Warren and Auntie Ann lived in Virginia, and we would visit at least once a year. They had a friendly dog named Cindy, and Warren had a collection of books that blew my little mind. Mainly, they were Louis L’Amour westerns – he and my grandfather both loved that guy’s work, and Warren owned every book he ever wrote. That’s about 90 books, all told. If I concentrate, I can still smell the basement where he kept those books.

My grandfather died when I was in school. He’d always told me that he was a cook in the Navy, and I’d always believed him. I can’t precisely remember, but it was either at his wake, or shortly after, that my Uncle Warren took me aside to tell me that wasn’t exactly true. The two Dalton brothers served together on a destroyer called the Lamson during World War II, and while my grandfather did cook meals, that wasn’t all he did. My uncle was a radar operator, and my grandfather was a gunner.

About 10 years ago, Warren shared his WWII memories with me. He wrote most of them down, but we also had a number of really good conversations about that time in his life. The ship he was on was nicknamed the “Lucky Lamson.” It missed out on Pearl Harbor by a day or so, and through its entire tenure in the Pacific, it narrowly escaped sinking about a dozen times. Ships on either side of the Lamson met with watery ends, and more than once the ship needed some vital repair that kept it from going on ill-fated missions.

Throughout their time in the service, the Dalton brothers watched out for each other. Warren ended up spending 22 years in the Navy, and working for Raytheon when he got out. Smart, smart man, my uncle. He married my aunt about a month before I was born – we’ve always joked that I was the youngest guest at their wedding.

If I had to pick one thing to summarize my relationship with my Uncle Warren, though, that thing would be chess. It’s a game I love, and Warren taught me to play it. He was a chess master – he had books on chess, and I read some of them, trying to up my game. I must have played 200 games against Warren over the years, and I never beat him. The last time I played him was about two years ago, when he was 89 years old or so. He trounced me.

When I was a teenager, Warren and I played a game of chess through the mail. I can’t remember how long it went on – months, maybe a year. But I remember that other interests pulled me away, and we never finished that game. I feel bad about that. I should have kept it going. I mean, Warren would have won, no question. But I should have kept it going.

My Uncle Warren has had a tough time of it lately. He had a stroke about a year ago, and the doctors initially thought he’d had another about a month back. In the end, he contracted double pneumonia, and passed away in the hospital on Friday, June 9. He was 91 years old.

He had a full military funeral service at Massachusetts National Cemetery, which was lovely. Two active duty sailors stood guard at his casket, and they folded a flag and handed it to my aunt. After the ceremony, my aunt – who needs a wheelchair to get around – asked to be pushed closer to the casket. She kissed it softly, and grasped tightly to the handhold on the side, as if trying to keep him here. It broke my heart.

I’ve decided I have to tell the story of the Lucky Lamson somehow. It’s important for a couple of reasons. In a general sense, these stories are disappearing, along with the generation that lived them, and we need to hang on to them. But in a more specific and personal sense, I just want people to remember my Uncle Warren, and know what he did serving his country. Like his famous ancestors, he was one of the good guys.

One last salute for Warren Dalton, the last of the Dalton Gang. May he rest in peace.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Anyone who’s been following this column for any length of time knows that I’m a Brian Wilson fanboy. But here’s something you may not know: I really don’t like the Beach Boys that much.

Oh, I think they’re a dazzlingly good vocal group, in all of their many incarnations. Mike Love may instill in me a desire to punch him in the face every time I see his picture, but the man can harmonize. And there’s no denying that with Pet Sounds, they made one of my favorite albums of all time. But other than that, the high points of their catalog are few and far between, and are almost entirely down to the genius of Brian Wilson, and Brian’s shown pretty clearly that he doesn’t need the Boys as much as they need him.

What it comes down to, for me, is a question of what, exactly, the Beach Boys are meant to be. They started out as a pretty simple surf-rock band, a fun little family group with the three Wilson brothers (Brian, Carl and Dennis) and their cousin, Love. Family friend Al Jardine rounded the group out, and the Wilsons’ father, Murry, became their manager. They wore matching outfits and sang about sun, summer, and of course, surfing. It was all pretty cute, and if Brian Wilson hadn’t been born brilliant, it may have remained just pretty cute.

But then Brian started writing his masterpieces. “In My Room” was first, as far as I’m concerned. You can trace everything I love about Wilson’s melancholy melodies right back to that tune. But then he just kept going. “I Get Around.” “Help Me Rhonda.” The whole second side of Today. While Mike Love was desperately trying to keep his surfin’ cash cow going, Brian Wilson was becoming an artist right before our eyes. Pet Sounds was a revelation, but not really a surprise by that point. Everyone who was paying attention at the time could no doubt tell that Wilson was something special, and he’d one day do something amazing.

But see, all the songs I like from the Beach Boys are not really Beach Boys songs. Love is right, in a way – they’re a good-time vocal group, they sing fun songs about riding the waves, and Wilson’s artistic ambitions never sat well alongside the likes of “Little Deuce Coupe.” It was that resistance to change that partially caused Wilson to abandon SMiLE, the finest work of his life, in 1967, and not return to it for more than 35 years. In a lot of ways, when Wilson assembled his current solo band, and finally revisited and completed SMiLE, it was his final show of independence from the Beach Boys.

As for the Boys, Dennis and Carl Wilson were gone, and Love was in charge of the group, leading them through terrible country versions of their hits (mainly penned by Brian) and playing fairgrounds and old-folks festivals. Meanwhile, Brian Wilson was selling out prestigious concert halls and receiving some of the best reviews of his life. Wilson’s subsequent That Lucky Old Sun proved this late-career surge was no lark, and that he was the artistic heart and soul of his former band. He was finally free of them.

So why in the world would he agree to a reunion tour with the surviving Beach Boys? And why would he make a new record with them? I’m not sure. I’m not even certain how much of these decisions are Brian’s, given his drug-damaged state of mind. I’ve heard so many mixed stories about Wilson’s detachment and delirium on stage with the Boys on this tour. Some days he’ll be right there, playing and singing the old hits, and some days, he’ll barely utter a note. Like I said, the Beach Boys need Brian Wilson much more than he needs them. I’m hoping this isn’t as manipulative and money-grubbing as it sounds.

But Brian has always shone in the studio, so that’s where I’m looking to figure out what I should make of this new Beach Boys. The new album – the first in 16 years, and the first with Wilson’s full participation since the ‘70s – is called That’s Why God Made the Radio. All of the surviving Boys are on it – Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks – but most of the music was performed by Wilson’s usual band, the Wondermints. (And they are amazing.) In a lot of ways, this should be just a Brian Wilson solo record with some different voices in the harmonies.

Instead, though, it’s a perfect distillation of that conflict between Mike Love and Brian Wilson, between what the Beach Boys were and what Wilson grew into. Roughly half of this record is glorious, sad, melodic pop of the highest order. The other half is bland tropical malarkey. As an album, it doesn’t cohere at all, and some of its worst sins are Wilson’s. It’s like he felt he needed to strike a balance, and write some songs Love wouldn’t criticize. Songs the Boys could sing while swaying, arm in arm, on the stage, septuagenarians singing along.

At least, that’s all I can imagine. I can’t figure out why else Wilson would write something like “The Private Life of Bill and Sue,” or “Beaches in Mind.” There’s a thematic resonance to some of it – the album is about nostalgia, about what the Beach Boys have meant to the world, and you’d need to include some songs about the ocean to make that work. Essentially, the first tracks are about looking back, and heading out for one last hurrah. And the songs from “Spring Vacation” to “Beaches in Mind,” I guess, are supposed to represent that final blowout.

To be honest, I feared it would all be like this. Reunions are patchy prospects even under the best of circumstances, and a “Look! Brian’s back!” tour doesn’t seem like the ideal situation. But Brian Wilson is still Brian Wilson, no matter how much he appears to have changed, and I should have had more faith. About half the songs on this record are unspeakably gorgeous, just vintage Wilson, and they nicely counterbalance the joyous nostalgia with an almost heartbreaking acceptance. Even the Beach Boys get old, and time leaves them behind.

The emotional core of the album is almost entirely contained in its final four songs, a suite of sorts about growing older and looking back with peaceful sadness. “Strange World” is a celebration of life’s twists and turns, sung while people-watching on the Santa Monica pier, its buoyant melody lifted by the Boys’ swirling voices.

But it’s “There and Back Again” that truly taps into a deeper well. Reminiscent of “Surf’s Up,” this winding piano epic feels like time slipping, like years melting away. It’s a plea to return to the way things used to be, for a “wonderful Pacific coast getaway,” but the next piece, the brief yet striking “Pacific Coast Highway,” finds Wilson alone again, naturally. “Driving down the Pacific coast on Highway One, the setting sun, goodbye,” he sings, leading into the heartrending “Summer’s Gone,” Brian’s farewell to the Beach Boys and the life he used to live.

Written years ago as a proposed final Beach Boys song, this is everything you could expect from the title and more. “Summer’s gone, it’s finally sinking in, one day begins, another ends, I live them all and back again…” Placing this song at the end of the album brings everything into focus. This is Brian’s goodbye to the band, and to the carefree life it represents. It’s the last Beach Boys album, and at its conclusion, the mature and wiser Brian Wilson comes to the fore, showing songs like “Beaches in Mind” for the nostalgic lies they are.

And for that, I love him even more. To use a high-profile reunion to gently let go of a dream many still hold, that’s brave and beautiful. Brian Wilson just turned 70 years old, and no matter what his state of mind on stage, there’s no one else who could have crafted the suite that ends this album. (Or the minute-and-a-half of blissful, wordless vocals that open it.) Yes, the Beach Boys need Brian more than they need him. But without the Boys, this work wouldn’t have as deep an impact. He needed them to say this.

All of which makes That’s Why God Made the Radio an essential part of Wilson’s creative rebirth over the past 10 years. The clunky numbers – and there are several – are easier to overlook in context. I expected I would buy this album out of obligation, play it once or twice, and shelve it with my latter-day Beach Boys discs. I did not expect a creative statement this powerful. Brian Wilson surprised me again.

What could have been a crass, money-grubbing throwaway is instead, more often than you’d expect, a moving goodbye to a time long gone. It is another chapter in Brian Wilson’s ongoing musical effort to be at peace with himself and his history. I hope one day he achieves that peace. Until then, I hope he keeps making music as glorious as the good stuff here. This is likely the final Beach Boys album, and I could not have asked for a better reminder of what they once were, or a better farewell to this chapter in the life of a genius I adore.

Next week, confounding expectations with Jukebox the Ghost and Linkin Park. 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.