There aren’t many people who can say they designed something truly iconic. Ray Cusick was one of them.

In 1963, a fledgling British science fiction show named Doctor Who received an initial order of 13 episodes. It was a tricky program, aimed at families, yet featuring an irascible old man kidnapping two schoolteachers and dragging them through time and space. There was nothing like it at the time, and no indication that it would become a raging success, so all involved treated those initial 13 episodes as the only ones they would ever get to make.

And then, something extraordinary happened, and that something extraordinary was called the Daleks. It’s hard to imagine a time when the evil pepper shakers were an unknown commodity, but they first trundled onto our screens in the show’s sixth episode, on Dec. 28, 1963. The reaction was instantaneous and widespread. We laugh at the term “Dalekmania” now, but it was a real thing – the Daleks were a national craze, and all by themselves, they ensured Doctor Who’s future beyond those initial episodes.

While Terry Nation gets all the credit for creating the Daleks, Ray Cusick is the man who designed them. Using what he had – plywood, tricycles, bathroom plungers – Cusick created a unique and striking bad guy, one far creepier and more interesting than Nation’s vague descriptions in his script. It was the look of the Daleks that captivated the youth of Britain in the ‘60s, and though he never received a penny beyond his BBC salary for crafting them, Cusick was the man to thank for that. And blessedly, fandom eventually did thank him.

While it’s been clear for a long time that the Daleks would outlive Cusick, that possibility became sad reality on Friday, when Cusick died of heart failure in his sleep. He was 84. Rest in peace, Ray, and thank you for not only designing the Daleks, but giving Doctor Who the boost it needed to continue on. Everyone watching the show now owes you a great debt.

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This month, Radiohead’s Pablo Honey turns 20.

If you ever hear anyone tell you that they predicted from this album that Radiohead would one day be one of the most important and influential bands on the planet, you have my permission to call that person a filthy liar. Pablo Honey, to be blunt, isn’t very good. Its worst song, “Creep,” became its biggest hit, but even the better tracks are frustratingly average. No one could have known that, a mere four years later, these lads from Oxfordshire would create the best album of the 1990s, OK Computer.

Since then, millions of words have been spent trying to figure out how Radiohead went from a pub band to perhaps the most artistically intriguing group in the world, able to somehow sell the general public on some of the most cerebral, bizarre music ever presented to a mass audience. Radiohead is able to do seemingly anything they want, on their own schedule, without a hint of artistic compromise, and whatever you feel about the music they’ve been making for the last 12 or so years, that’s a position any band would envy.

Radiohead’s influence and autonomy often overshadows that music – you still hear more about the pay-what-you-want online release of In Rainbows than the songs contained on it. That’s partially because the band has become more and more insular as the years have worn on. Their last effort, 2011’s The King of Limbs, was typically twitchy and difficult, and made in a vacuum. The band offers you no way in except through their own work, and no air escapes. (And keep in mind, I liked that one.) No other band sounds like modern Radiohead, and no other band would want to.

The Radiohead bubble even extends to Thom Yorke’s solo projects, which provide an interesting case study. In 2006, Yorke released his first solo album, The Eraser. It was a mechanical, melody-free bore, meticulously built on computers – the very definition of a one-man project. When it came time to play these songs live, though, Yorke assembled a band. And what a band – powerhouse drummer Joey Waronker, bassist Flea and percussionist Mauro Refosco, along with longtime producer Nigel Godrich. I don’t know about you, but I would see that band in a heartbeat.

Reviews from the Eraser tour were glowing. The band – soon christened Atoms for Peace – had reportedly opened up Yorke’s cold, clicky tunes, finding the beating hearts beneath. I never saw the shows, but the notices made me optimistic. And when the band headed into the studio, determined to capture their synergy on disc, I couldn’t help but remain hopeful. I mean, just look at that lineup. There’s no way that Yorke could take this group of musicians and make something removed, something mechanistic, right? I mean, right?

Sigh.

The debut from Atoms for Peace is called Amok. It’s packaged in a near-complete replica of the accordion-fold sleeve that housed The Eraser, and for good reason – this is The Eraser Part II. If you were hoping that playing with a new set of musicians – and especially this set of musicians – would push Yorke into new territory for the first time since the ‘90s, keep on hoping. Instead of meeting Flea, Waronker and Refosco halfway, Yorke and Godrich have brought them into the Radiohead vacuum, and sucked all the air from their lungs.

Or at least, I assume that’s what happened. The only reason I suspect any of those three musicians are even on this record is because the liner notes tell me they are. The percussion all sounds mechanical, or sampled from organic drums and looped. The bass is muted, if it’s present at all. Only on a couple of later tracks does it sound like it was performed by a human. Everything else is chilled synths and clack-clack drum machines, with Yorke doing his now-trademark barely-tuneful moan over the top.

In short, it sounds like Radiohead. Within that framework, Yorke and Godrich do some pretty good work. “Default” is particularly interesting, with its blossoming synth chorus, and “Reverse Running” stands out as one of the few tracks on which Atoms for Peace feels like a band. (A robotic, soulless band, but still.) But it’s hard not to hear Amok as a lost opportunity. Yorke needs new blood to shake things up, and if Flea, Waronker and Refosco can’t manage it, I have no idea what it will take to pull him out of the bubble.

It’s pretty clear that Radiohead decided to live in that bubble while making 2000’s alien Kid A. I’ve often wondered what they might have sounded like had they continued down the OK Computer path, evolving as they went. There’s no way to know that, but what we do have are bands influenced by Radiohead’s golden years, bands who end up finding new corners in that sound to explore. And one of the best of those is Everything Everything.

The Manchester band’s second album, Arc, actually mixes up a slew of influences. I’m hearing Andy Partridge in some of Jonathan Higgs’ topsy-turvy vocal melodies, and the precise, full-blooded arrangements of Minus the Bear throughout. But Radiohead is definitely the touchstone. Arc is full of the kind of songs I wish Radiohead would write these days. I can even hear Thom Yorke singing something like “Torso of the Week,” with its electronic pitter-patter drums and cool synths. But then it slips into the chorus – the chorus! – and instantly overtakes everything Radiohead has done in more than a decade.

There are 13 songs on Arc, and not once does the band offer something weak or half-assed. Opener “Cough Cough” hits like Bloc Party, but soon evolves into a stunning pop song, the kind you wish they’d play on the radio. Dig the frenetic keys during the “coming alive” section, and the eye-widening key change at the end of each line of the chorus. Higgs has an immediately recognizable voice, elastic yet inwardly drawn, and Arc gives him a workout.

I want to live in the alternate universe in which “Kemosabe” is the number-one hit it deserves to be. It’s an effortless-sounding glide of a tune, with an infectious chorus that slides up out of nowhere and invades your head space. In this universe, “Duet” is also a hit. If Snow Patrol could get it together and write an interesting song, it might sound like this. Or at least, like the first half of this – the second half is a buildup to a string-laden explosion. It’s mighty. “Amourland” is another slinky should-be hit, and “Feet for Hands” is incredible, like Muse with an acoustic guitar.

Much of the second half of Arc is given over to epic ballads, like the final stretches of OK Computer. “The House is Dust” starts with drones and a plodding beat, but ends with Higgs and a piano, lamenting his finite existence: “I wish I could be living at the end of all living just to know what happens…” “The Peaks” is among the most striking songs on the album, a rich requiem for a lost world: “I’ve seen more villages burn than animals born, I’ve seen more towers come down than children grow up…” They don’t shy away from the synthesizers, but they wring heart and soul from them.

Arc may be the finest album I have heard so far this year. But even beyond that, it serves as proof that there is life – real, wide-open, warm-blooded life – in the sound Radiohead pioneered. Yorke doesn’t seem interested in tapping into it, so I’m glad to have bands like this one, who mold it into new shapes, and breathe new purpose into it. It’s hard to say what Radiohead would sound like if they finally popped their bubble and opened up to the world. But with tremendous bands like Everything Everything out there, it’s also hard to care.

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Next week, Trent Reznor and They Might Be Giants. Two great tastes that, frankly, would taste horrible together. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter @tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Welcome to the second of our two-part animal-related reviews collection, and the second opportunity I have resisted to make a Nine Inch Nails reference in the title. You’re welcome.

So you all know about my aversion to hype, and my reluctance to plunk down good money for the work of new, untested bands. Yes, I know this puts me at odds with every music critic ever. The thrill of the new, all by itself, doesn’t hold a lot of weight with me. The venerable Todd Rundgren has a new album coming out in April, his 24th, and I’m more excited about that than I am about hearing whatever new debut EP Pitchfork is talking about this week.

Yes, I understand that I’m old, and that this is entirely my problem. Which is why I resolved to fix it, to the extent that I can. Over the past several years, I’ve tried to hear as many new bands as I can afford, and listen for the potential, not necessarily the actual. A good debut should point to the future, and if all you have is one album in you, I’m still much less interested, no matter how exciting that one album may be. But I’m trying to separate my feelings about the music from my negative reaction to early hype.

Sometimes, it works out. In 2008, I picked up a fairly well-attended debut record called Antidotes by an Oxford band called Foals. This was during the Franz Ferdinand/Arctic Monkeys craze, when guitar-led dance bands were a big thing, and I nearly skipped Foals, since early notices lumped them into the same category. But those notices were wrong. Foals’ music is guitar-led, and it is danceable, but the songs on Antidotes were considerably more complex and intriguingly arranged than anything else coming out of that particular British scene.

In fact, in my review of Antidotes, I likened them to Isaac Brock fronting Minus the Bear, which is still a decent enough description. Of course, they shoved all that aside for their marvelous second album, Total Life Forever. A much more atmospheric and beautiful creation, TLF continued the band’s complicated arrangements, but applied them to dreamier songs, thoroughly opening up the sound. Despite the fact that I never got around to writing a full review of it, Total Life Forever is a remarkable second record, one that eschews hits and easy gratification for a more immersive artistic experience.

So yeah, that worked out pretty well. But Foals’ third album, Holy Fire, has left me perplexed and uncertain. It’s not a bad record by any means, but it feels like the kind of thing a band makes after their label tells them to hit a certain sales floor, or not bother coming in Monday morning.

That label is Warner Bros., the first major to take a chance on Foals, and it sounds like Yannis Philippakis and company repaid them by trying to write some hit songs. After a slow-building “Prelude,” the band hits a meaty groove on “Inhaler,” and it’s immediately more obvious than anything they’ve done. The Foals arrangements are still in effect, but the song is a real crowd pleaser, particularly when the unexpected (and frankly awesome) guitar hook comes in at 1:49. The big, blocky chords here signal a true departure for this band.

That’s not the big hit in waiting, though. “My Number” is ridiculously catchy, like something out of the Phoenix playbook, and it’s clearly designed to get the club on its feet. This is Foals’ idea of a radio song, based around an irresistible, body-shaking riff and an endlessly repetitive vocal line. “You don’t have my number, we don’t need each other now…” To extend my Isaac Brock reference from earlier, this is the band’s “Dashboard.”

And it’s very good, don’t get me wrong. But it just doesn’t offer me the same puzzle-pieces-falling-into-place feeling of the first two Foals albums. “Everytime” is similar, a percussive groove leading up to a big chorus, and you can almost see Philippakis motioning for the crowd to put their hands in the air before that last rousing refrain. The whole album retains this arena-sized feeling, and it’s an interesting suit for Foals to try on. But it doesn’t fit naturally, and Holy Fire feels a little awkward because of it.

Thankfully, the songs get more interesting in the second half. “Late Night” is a smoky driving tune with ringing electric pianos and acres of atmosphere. “Out of the Woods” gets to a U2 place, while “Milk and Black Spiders” has some Cure-esque touches. “Providence” is a pounding rocker, but an oblique one – the shifting time signatures and wildly placed guitar stings make this one a winner. And closer “Moon” is as darkly dreamlike as anything on Total Life Forever.

I can’t rightly say I’m disappointed in Holy Fire, but I can’t say it extends the band’s winning streak, either. Foals are simply not meant to be a popular band, and even though they pull off the hit single formula well, it’s the more fascinating material in the record’s back half that will make my personal playlist. I hope “My Number” is a smash, and I also hope the band has the integrity to take that newfound fame and money and make a fourth album so completely art-driven, so completely them, that it just floors me.

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Speaking of bands I tried on a whim, there’s Local Natives.

Three years ago, I picked up this Los Angeles group’s debut, Gorilla Manor, on the strength of a few reviews comparing them to Fleet Foxes. Well, they don’t sound a lot like Fleet Foxes, but what they did bring to the table was pretty great in its own right. Soaring harmonies, folksy acoustic guitars, inventive drumming, and a real sense of movement – the best part about Gorilla Manor was its kinetic nature. The moving parts of the songs never stopped spinning, and nothing sat still. It’s what separated them from the likes of Grizzly Bear.

How distressing, then, to see that the group enlisted Aaron Dessner of the National to produce the follow-up record, Hummingbird. Dessner did what he always does – he slowed everything down, smoothed everything out, and made it all more boring. The result is an album that is merely fine, instead of excellent. And this band deserved an excellent second record. In a way, they tried to make their Total Life Forever here, but came up short – the songs just aren’t up to the standard of the debut, and instead of dreaming, they sound like they’re sleepwalking.

I’m not sure how much of this to lay at Dessner’s feet, but the parts of Hummingbird I don’t like certainly sound like him. Opener “You and I” sports a soaring chorus, and Taylor Rice can still belt one of those out, but the music around it is gauzy and static. Even the bridge section, which should be delirious and dramatic, just sounds submerged. Single “Heavy Feet” drowns a sharp drumbeat beneath plainly plucked chords and droning sounds – this is saved from sounding exactly like the National only by its nicely melodic chorus and Rice’s high voice.

It’s not all bad news. Once you get used to the idea that Local Natives are not even trying to outdo Gorilla Manor, this album is quite nice. “Ceilings” has a skybound repetition to it, and Rice sends his voice into the air with effortless charm. “Black Spot” builds slowly, refusing to actually go anywhere for a long time, and then leaving earth with a minute to go. “Three Months” is actually quite pretty, making good use of that soaring falsetto. As the album wafts along, the songs get more interesting – “Wooly Mammoth” actually sounds like it could fit on the debut, and “Colombia” is lovely, if (like the rest of this effort) a little sedate.

In the final analysis, I like Hummingbird, but I wish I loved it. Local Natives filled a particular niche with their debut, and they’ve abandoned it here. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I prefer the shifting folk they used to play to the quieter, simpler stuff on this album. It’s a good piece of work, pretty and aching in all the right ways, but it doesn’t stay with me the way Gorilla Manor did. I’m still interested in following Local Natives, but I’m not excited about it the way I once was.

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And that’ll do, pig. Next week, we get weird with Atoms for Peace and Everything Everything. We’ve also got new stuff from Steven Wilson, Cloud Cult, Trent Reznor’s How to Destroy Angels, They Might Be Giants and David Bowie coming up. Pretty good year so far.

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter @tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Have you noticed there are a lot of bands these days with animal names?

A brief sampling: Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, Deer Tick, Arctic Monkeys, Grizzly Bear, Minus the Bear, Modest Mouse, Cat Power, The Bird and the Bee, Sea Wolf, Dr. Dog, Mastodon, Cage the Elephant, Swans, Gold Panda, Pelican, Caribou, Porcupine Tree, Horse the Band, the Fruit Bats, the Mountain Goats, Wolfmother, Doves. Heck, even Andrew Bird sort of qualifies.

This week and next, it’s “Welcome to the Jungle” meets “At the Zoo” here at TM3AM. We have three bands with animal names and one with an animal album title, and if you think that’s just a flimsy excuse to corral a bunch of unrelated reviews together, well, you might be on to something. But keep it our little secret, ‘kay?

The truth is this: I will be out of state most of next week, so I need easy and fast material, and I need to write it today. There. I’m glad we had this little sharing moment. I feel much closer to you now. I hope this won’t impact your enjoyment of the reviews themselves, which I promise are up to the standard you’ve come to expect here at Tuesday Morning 3 A.M., however low that may be. It is my pleasure to serve you.

Now read, you bastard. Read!

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If you’d told me in 1996 that one day I’d be reviewing the “Novocaine for the Soul” band’s 10th album on the internet, I would have said, “What the hell is the internet?” But then I would have laughed. It was obvious from just one listen to Beautiful Freak, the Eels’ debut album, that they were a one-hit wonder, and they’d soon (ahem) sputter out.

And yet, here we are in 2013, and not only has E and his band survived, they’ve thrived. Rather than try to emulate the success of “Novocaine” (still their only major hit), Eels quickly gave us (among other records) a devastating concept album (1998’s Electro-Shock Blues), a distorted rock throwdown (2001’s Souljacker), a double album of remarkable scope (2005’s Blinking Lights and Other Revelations), and most recently, a linked trilogy about the end of a relationship and the start of a new one (2009’s Hombre Lobo and 2010’s End Times and Tomorrow Morning). They have a proven track record now, and their live shows are legendary.

So here’s album number 10, Wonderful, Glorious. Now, with a title like that, they’re just setting themselves up. But happily, this record not only lives up to its own adjectives, it’s the most fun you’re likely to have listening to this band. It stands head and shoulders above the recent trilogy, and that was pretty damn good. Seventeen years into their recording career, Eels seem to be hitting their stride.

The common read on leader Mark Oliver Everett is that he’s a complicated man who writes uncomplicated songs. Even his stage name is simple. Everett’s tunes use plain language and easily digestible melodies to get twisty emotions across in the most direct way possible. I’m not sure why it works as well as it does, but E can sing the most banal line you’ve ever heard and somehow make you feel it. Part of the secret is his everyman voice. That phrase is used a lot to describe trained singers who sound a little raspy, but in E’s case, he really does sound like a regular guy.

Wonderful, Glorious contains 13 more Everett ditties (17 if you buy the deluxe edition), and while the lyrics retain his usual style, the music is among his most accomplished. While some previous Eels albums have conjured up the image of E alone in his basement, crying at his mixing desk, this is a full-band effort. The gang is all here: The Chet, Knuckles, Koool G Murder and P-Boo (yes, those are their names), and these songs sound like they were jammed out and refined live.

That’s not to say they sound like jams. “Bombs Away” opens the record on an intricate drum beat and a smoky riff, but the song recedes and roils back several times over its five minutes. It’s meticulously arranged, with synth interludes and well-placed percussion touches, and at one point it fades to nothing but vinyl record noise. It sticks to its crawling tempo throughout, but it serves as the mission statement for this uncommonly joyous album: “I’ve had enough of being complacent, I’ve had enough of being a mouse, I’ll no longer keep my mouth shut, bombs away, gonna shake the house…”

“Accident Prone” is a splendid E ballad about randomly stumbling into a new relationship. It’s followed by the earth-shaking “Peach Blossom,” which lurches ahead on a thunderous beat and a distorted, dirty synth bass riff. “Open the window, man, and smell the peach blossom,” E commands, and you have no choice but to listen. “New Alphabet” is similarly awesome, its slinky blues hiding a defiant sunshine lyric. “When the world stops making sense, I make a new alphabet,” E shouts over more of that fillings-rattling keyboard bass.

That live-band feel is crucial to an organ-fueled romp like “Stick Together” or a Black Keys-style blues shouter like “Open My Present.” But my favorite moments on Wonderful, Glorious find the band augmenting what would have been solo E tracks in the past. The superb “The Turnaround” is epic in scope, starting at a twinkle and ending up a rousing anthem. “Six bucks in my pocket, the shoes on my feet, the first step is out the door and onto the street,” E sings, and it sounds like the moment he finally believes himself free. “On the Ropes,” similarly, is a classic E song given great new dimensions. The chords and the sentiments are pure Everett: “Every time I find myself in this old bind, watching the death of my hopes, in the ring so long, gonna prove ‘em wrong, I’m not knocked out but I’m on the ropes…”

See? Simple, direct, yet effective. I used to hate myself for loving Eels, convinced it was some sort of deficiency – how could I enjoy something this determinedly uncomplicated? Eventually I just learned to let go and let it work for me. And it does. Wonderful, Glorious ends with its title track, a slinky, sorta-funky groove with lyrics like this: “The sum of all the love inside your heart will get you through your plight, it’s all right.” I love it anyway, and I love this album more than most. It’s pretty wonderful, and it’s kind of glorious.

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Seemingly at the other end of the lyrical spectrum is Scotland’s Frightened Rabbit, although they’re really not that far apart. Both Mark Everett and Scott Hutchison write about the joy of rising above, the euphoric swell of pride that comes from winning a long-fought struggle against oneself. The difference is, while E just comes out and says this stuff, Hutchison speaks in beautiful metaphors, in verse that is anything but pedestrian.

Which is why it’s ironic that the fourth Rabbit album is called Pedestrian Verse. Reportedly, Hutchison wrote those words on the cover of his lyric notebook this time out, reminding himself to keep things down to earth. Only he can say whether he succeeded. To my ears, while these words are certainly more inward-looking, they still ring with the same poetic, emotional touch Hutchison has brought to every Frightened Rabbit outing. Simply put, they’re wonderful, from the introspective “Acts of Man” to the fiery “Holy” to the final perfect metaphor, “The Oil Slick.” (“All the dark words pouring from my throat sound like an oil slick coating the wings we’ve grown…”)

The real story this time is the music, for while Hutchison turned his gaze inward, the band clearly decided to aim for the rafters. Pedestrian Verse is the Rabbit’s first album on a major label (Atlantic), and they’ve done the major label thing – they’ve expanded their sound to near-epic proportions. They still sound like Frightened Rabbit, thank goodness, but a bigger, more all-inclusive Frightened Rabbit. There’s a sweep and a grandeur to this album, and it was there before, but never to this level. The guitars sound wide as the sky, the drums crack like cannons, and when the band aims for majesty, as they do on “The Woodpile,” they get there and then some.

What keeps all of this from turning into an Arcade Fire album? Hutchison’s voice, that thick Scottish brogue, that workingman’s attitude. The same instrument that turned “Swim Until You Can’t See Land” into an anthem for the ages here keeps this group of fist-pumpers tethered to the ground, and that’s a good thing. For all its oceans of sound, Pedestrian Verse is actually a modest album, clocking in at 42 minutes, no song breaking the five-minute mark. If the band can keep this balance going for the rest of its career, it will be a glorious miracle.

They’ve managed it here, brilliantly. Any album that begins with the line, “I am that dickhead in the kitchen, giving wine to your best girl’s glass” is doing something right. “Acts of Man” is a fantastic opener, quietly setting the stage with pianos and slowly building to full power. Hutchison’s lyrics take a look around at “the fatty British average” and report back their dismal findings: “While a knight in shitty armor rips a drunk out of her dress, one man tears into another, hides a coward’s heart in a lion’s chest, not here, heroic acts of man…” The final lines are so perfect that I have to reproduce them whole:

“I have never wanted more to be your man, and build a house around you
But I am just like all the rest of them, sorry, selfish, trying to improve
I’m here, I’m here, not heroic but I try…”

If there’s a verse that sums up this album, there it is. “Holy” finds Hutchison sounding off – “Don’t mind being lonely, don’t need to be told, stop acting so holy, I know I’m full of holes” – while the band provides sufficient fury behind him. He’s adept at finding the holes himself. “If you want a saint you don’t want me,” he sings in “December’s Traditions,” and ends “Dead Now” with these words: “So will you love me in spite of these tics and inconsistencies, there is something wrong with me.”

“Nitrous Gas” finds Hutchison all but giving up: “If happiness won’t live with me, I think I can live with that, keep all of your oxygen, hand me the nitrous gas…” And in fact the album’s finale, “The Oil Slick,” seems like it will conclude things on a similar note. Hutchison begins in failure, unable to write a song of love for someone dear. “Only an idiot would swim through the shit I write, how can I talk of light and warmth, I’ve got a voice like a gutter in a toxic storm…”

But then he finds it, and it’s gorgeous: “There is light, but there’s a tunnel to crawl through, there is love but misery loves you, we’ve still got hope so I think we’ll be fine in these disastrous times…” That shaft of light is mirrored in the music, which rises up on powerful wings, shaking off the black tar and heading for the sun. It’s a splendid moment on a splendid album. Frightened Rabbit have always been a good band, but over these last two albums, you can hear them becoming a great one. The struggle, like every struggle Hutchison depicts, has been worth it. Every second.

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Next week, some more animals. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter @tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So I had a plan for this week’s column.

Nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary. I was going to start by praising the new Eels album, Wonderful, Glorious, then move on to a more guarded yet still positive review of Frightened Rabbit’s Pedestrian Verse, and close with my reservations over the new Local Natives LP, Hummingbird. I doubt it would have been a classic, not one for the ages, but it would have been solid and entertaining. And maybe next week, I’ll actually write that column.

But not this week. Because on Saturday, a miracle happened.

After 21 years of promises and prevarications, My Bloody Valentine finally released their third album. And they did it in the most nonchalant way possible. The Facebook post announcing the record could not have been more understated: “We are preparing to go live with the new album/website this evening. We will make an announcement as soon as it’s up.” A couple hours later, that announcement came: “The album is now live on www.mybloodyvalentine.org.” That’s it. That’s how they broke two decades of silence. No fanfare, not even a few days of buildup to get us ready.

Oh, MBV mastermind Kevin Shields had been talking about a new record for half a year. But anyone who lived through the past two decades of baseless assurances from Shields no doubt tossed those comments aside, waiting to see if anything truly materialized. For a whole generation of fans, the new My Bloody Valentine album was like SMiLE, or Chinese Democracy – an album we never thought we’d see, no matter what Shields said. In fact, it just grew funnier when SMiLE actually came out, and then Chinese Democracy followed suit.

“We’re working on it,” Shields would say in yet another interview.

“We’ll believe it when we see it,” we all said in response. “It’s not that we don’t believe you, but… actually, it is that we don’t believe you.”

So the sudden appearance of a new nine-track My Bloody Valentine album, on sale the same night it was announced, was genuinely shocking. I still can barely believe it. The band clearly underestimated the impact a new MBV album would have – minutes after the album appeared, the band’s site went down, crushed by the onslaught of hungry fans. It took me about three hours of hitting “refresh” again and again to finally make my way in, reminding myself that last time My Bloody Valentine put out a record, this technology was unheard of.

In fact, within seconds of paying my money, I was listening to the album, something Shields could not have imagined last time he released something into the world. The reaction from his fans across the globe was immediate, documented on Facebook and Twitter and a million blogs. That must have been gratifying, a whole new experience for Shields and company. Saturday night (and Sunday morning) was an outpouring of love for a band and a sound that had been away too long. The new My Bloody Valentine album actually exists. It’s a bona fide miracle.

* * * * *

When I first heard Loveless, My Bloody Valentine’s undeniably classic sophomore album, I hated it.

I was 17, and my good friend Chris L’Etoile played it for me, barely able to contain his excitement. And I just stared dumbfounded at the stereo system, unable to process what I was hearing. It didn’t sound intriguing or mysterious or fascinating to me, it just sounded wrong, as if it had been mixed incorrectly. The vocals were too low and indistinct, the guitars too high and overpowering, the drums too far back and drowned out. And then came “To Here Knows When,” that insane smear of a track, and I just couldn’t do it. Music was not supposed to sound like this.

I can’t remember when I started appreciating, and then loving Loveless. It still sounds wrong – it’s still a musical atmosphere I need to acclimate to – but once I’m in, breathing the album’s air, it’s an experience unlike any other. Loveless still sounds like no other record ever made, despite its influence spreading like tendrils through the ensuing two decades. It takes multiple listens to pinpoint the melodies under the din, but once you find them, they’re like little treasures. Shields and Bilinda Butcher offer up angelic harmonies, holding down an oasis of beauty while the storm rages around them. Sometimes you can barely hear them, but that just makes the times you can more special.

Someone once described My Bloody Valentine’s music as the most beautiful songs in the world, played on lawnmowers. That’s not bad, although it’s exaggerated and simplified. One of the joys of listening to Loveless is trying to figure out just how Shields created these sounds. He twists five or six guitar parts into knots, then bombards them with effects, to the point where I’m left thinking, “I know these are guitars, but I have no idea what he did to turn them into this.”

I can truly understand why it took so long to follow up an album like Loveless. I could also have understood never following it up at all. That the album has taken such hold, has become so beloved, was surely a surprise to Shields, and I’m certain he felt like he could never escape its shadow. Very few albums like it exist – it’s uncompromised and uncompromising, and yet still justly revered by virtually all who have heard it. And the longer Shields waited, the more Loveless grew in stature, until following it up must have seemed impossible.

That he did it anyway, that he finally stopped tinkering with his material and let it fly free, is remarkable. That he managed to create a new work that can stand with the old, while never once trying to outdo it, is nothing less than astounding.

* * * * *

The new My Bloody Valentine album has a very simple title: m b v.

That’s right, the band’s initials, printed in lower case with spaces between the letters. It’s almost pretentiously unassuming, and taken at face value, another sign that the band has no idea of its own influence, or of how much anticipation awaits this new record. The genius of this album can be found in that title – it feels like just another My Bloody Valentine album, as if the band has released a new collection every couple of years since 1991. Even the cover is simple, just a blue blotch with purple lettering.

That attitude extends to the sound. Had this come out in 1993 or 1994, I expect it would have been greeted with nodding heads – this is so clearly the next chapter in the band’s evolution. It’s so obviously what happens next. The record opens with three tracks that echo – but do not attempt to surpass – the sound of Loveless, but as it progresses from there, it takes you by the hand into uncharted waters, into new sounds and shapes. By the end, you’re disoriented, but looking around, you know how you got to where you are.

Noel Murray, a writer for the AV Club, posited that m b v is a trio of three-song suites, and that helps explain it as well as anything. You have the Loveless suite, the pretty suite, and the batshit suite. Placing the familiar-sounding material up front makes it easier to follow Shields and company down the rabbit hole in the record’s final third. But even the first three tracks make it plain that we are not listening to Loveless redux. On Loveless, Shields went for sensory overload, layering track after track into a massive whole. On m b v, he contents himself with only a few tracks per song, but distorts and twists them beyond recognition.

Even the opening is a study in contrasts. Where “Only Shallow” kicked in with a now-famous drum intro, “She Found Now” shudders into frame, quivering, drumless yet thick enough to swallow you whole. Shields’ voice gently wafts in, submerged beneath the waves of distortion. It’s probably the most epic-sounding piece of soothing near-ambience I’ve ever heard, and it continues exactly like that, lilting melody surrounded by weighty, watery noise, for five minutes. And no, I can’t make out any of the lyrics either.

Both “Only Tomorrow” and “Who Sees You” are MBV in rock band mode. Of course, this means they sound like no other rock band on the planet. Many have tried to imitate Shields’ guitar sound, on full display here, but none have quite managed it, and it’s so good to hear the original article again. “Only Tomorrow” gives us our first Bilinda Butcher lead vocal, and at several points she takes a flying, wordless leap for the sky, and it’s thrilling. The distorted-beyond-belief guitar almost sounds like it’s out of control, but Shields pulls it off, even delivering a three-minute semi-solo. And “Who Sees You” finds Shields messing with the pitch of his guitar again, making it sound woozy and slightly off. It’ll make your head spin and your fillings hurt. Everything about this song sounds off kilter – it’s the most Loveless thing here.

But then? “Is This and Yes” signals an odd left turn. It’s entirely organ, voice and subtle (almost buried) percussion, and it’s ethereal and gorgeous. Even with such spare instrumentation, Butcher’s vocals are still submerged and indistinct, almost dreamlike. I’ve never heard a My Bloody Valentine song (or any other song) like it. “If I Am” is more conventional, but still pretty, Shields’ guitar sounding like a broken washing machine behind Colm O’Ciosoig’s rolling drums. This could almost be a pop song, if Shields would let it.

That makes the next track, “New You,” even more stunning. Because this one is a pop song, right down to its pulsing, danceable bass line. There are drum breaks, there’s a chorus, the guitars are rhythmic and mixed into the tune, Butcher’s voice is up front enough to make out words. On a My Bloody Valentine album, the most conventional song just sounds… odd. It also sounds terrific – the tune ends with blissful doo-doo-doos, and they’re so warm and inviting that you could almost – almost – imagine this song on the radio.

But that devilish trickster Kevin Shields is just lulling you into a false sense of complacency. The final three tracks are the craziest things the man has ever released, and the most riveting pieces on this album. “In Another Way” crashes in on a thunderous drum beat, guitars clashing with what sounds like a bagpipe sample, everything colliding with everything else, and yet still making sense. The melody takes a few listens to come to terms with, but it’s awesome, constantly shifting and moving about. The song’s extended instrumental playout is both majestic and insane – just what are those noises Shields is making with his guitar, and how did he make them?

“Nothing Is” remains a mystery to me. It’s three and a half minutes of repetitive, endless, crushing noise, charging forth on a drum beat so industrial that you’ll almost think you’re listening to a Ministry outtake. The only variation is in volume, as the drums get louder partway through. I spent this track waiting for it to explode or collapse into something else, and it never does – it’s just tension with no release. But the final tune, “Wonder 2,” provides all that release and more. It’s the most physically disorienting thing MBV has ever put to tape, frenzied guitar and organ fighting it out and then making love atop furious, jungle-style breakbeats while a squadron of fighter jets buzzes the studio. Yes, there’s a hummable melody. Yes, it’s impossible to hear on first listen. I heard “Wonder 2” for the first time while driving, and it’s so dizzying that I nearly ended up in the river.

And just like that, boom, it’s over. After more than 21 years, it’s a very quick 46 minutes. But it’s an amazing one, at once familiar and forward-looking, willing to take a beloved sonic template and mold it into new shapes. Shields has once again made an album unlike any other I’ve encountered, and he’s mapped out the way forward for a band I never thought I’d hear again. The fact that this album exists at all is kind of surreal, but the fact that it’s a worthy successor to Loveless, and a terrific piece of work in its own right, is nothing short of incredible.

Here’s how I know Shields and company did well. They took more than two decades to follow up a revered, classic record, and no one’s complaining about the final result. Everyone’s happy. m b v has been remarkably well received, and I haven’t read a single grousing sentiment. Beyond my own satisfaction with the album, it’s gratifying to see how welcome it has been in the lives of those who waited so long for it. And now I’m hearing that an EP could follow within a few months? Just amazing.

How wonderful would it be if My Bloody Valentine settled into a groove now? If they began releasing a great new album every two years or so, to the point where people expect it? Now that Shields has shrugged off the weight of Loveless, it could happen. But even if it doesn’t, we have at least one more My Bloody Valentine album than I ever thought we’d have. I’m blown away by m b v – both its existence and its quality. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s a miracle.

You can hear all of m b v at the band’s YouTube channel. You can buy it as a download, a CD and a vinyl record at their website.

Next week, what I was supposed to write this week. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter @tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.