I was going to start this column by lamenting the sad state of Doctor Who this season. But then they went and aired an episode called “Hide” this week, and it was wonderful. So hey, maybe there’s a chance it will pull out of the tailspin.

But man, this season has been pretty lousy. We’re nine episodes and two specials in, and I can think of maybe four of those I’ve liked enough to watch twice. When one of the highlights of your season is a Chris Chibnall script called “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” something’s gone wrong somewhere. I think the problem is multilayered, but then, all I can do is compare this season to the previous two, which I think were pretty much marvelous.

Splitting the season up hasn’t helped. The first five episodes were mainly killing time until the “heartbreaking” exit of Amy and Rory. The second half has had much more forward momentum, thanks to the mystery of Clara Oswin Oswald, but even so, the single-episode-story format has kept things feeling disconnected. Yes, I know that’s the DNA of the show, but under Steven Moffat, Doctor Who has been much more about telling a longer, more involved tale.

So now we’re rushing headlong into the 50th anniversary celebrations this fall, and we’re working through another set of single-episode stories. Thus far, we’ve had a decent thriller about monsters in the wifi, a godawful mess about singing aliens and an impossible leaf, a mediocre rewrite of “Dalek” that botched the return of the Ice Warriors, and “Hide,” the first truly terrific story of the year. Even if the next four are all amazing, that puts Season Seven at around .500. And with another Mark Gatiss script on the way, even that seems doubtful. (On the bright side, we do have a Neil Gaiman story to look forward to.)

And then there’s the finale, a scant four weeks away. The title has just been revealed: “The Name of the Doctor.” The tagline is “His greatest secret revealed.” I don’t see a way out of this that isn’t, in some way, disappointing. Last year, I would have had full faith in Moffat to pull off a finale called “The Name of the Doctor.” He’s been leading up to it for some time anyway, and I expect he knows where he’s going with all this. But after the lackluster season we’ve had so far, I’m worried about it. The idea that it might fundamentally change the show is both exciting and terrifying.

I wish I had a Tardis, so I could pop forward four weeks and see how it all turns out. Fingers crossed that they don’t screw it up.

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The Doctor has a time machine, but one thing he never does is change the past.

That was actually one of the show’s first mandates, spoken by William Hartnell, the first Doctor. “You can’t change history,” he warned Barbara Wright in “The Aztecs.” “Not one line!” Since then, many Who stories have centered around the dangers of trying to change what has already happened. It’s a tricky thing, revisiting the past. You may go into it with the best of intentions, but the results are often disastrous.

At least, they are on television. But don’t tell that to our three contestants this week, all of whom have taken a dive into their own histories with a big red pen. And despite the odds, all three have surfaced with something special.

Now, granted, there are a lot of ways to muck about with the past. British institution Marillion have chosen one of the easiest – remixing and remastering an older album that has never received its due. The band’s 1998 effort Radiation, their 10th album, was a classic case of fumbling right before the end zone. The songs were mainly excellent, the heavier vibe brought Marillion crashing into the age of then-modern rock, and the performances were first rate. But then the album was mixed by someone with water in their ears – the album has always felt muddy and indistinct, the vocals too low, the noise ratio way too high. There’s always been a sense that this album, good as it is, could have been great.

For their new release, Radiation 2013, the band handed all of the original album tapes to resident producer Mike Hunter. And he’s worked magic with them. The new version of Radiation is bright and bold, loud and layered – it sounds like an entirely new recording. Hunter has made a few changes – he nixed a collage-like intro to the album, and a reprise of “These Chains,” and he removed some effects from Steve Hogarth’s voice. But mainly, what he’s done is find the truly fantastic record that’s always been hiding within these tracks.

You can hear the difference right away, as Steve Rothery’s thick, chunky guitar opens “Under the Sun.” That song is now perfectly mixed, and the improvement is staggering. I’m not sure I agree with Hunter’s decision to dispense with the voice mail effect on Hogarth’s voice on “The Answering Machine” – that was kind of the point of the song – but aside from that, one of Marillion’s most rocking numbers now sounds brilliant. And “Now She’ll Never Know” sounds delicate now, instead of brittle and breakable. The acoustic guitar is noticeably bigger, Hogarth’s crystal-clear falsetto filled out, and the sparse arrangement has been augmented with more focus on the keys.

Many of these songs didn’t need much work to become amazing. “Three Minute Boy” has always been Marillion’s McCartney moment, a piano-pop epic worthy of any in the genre. (The thrilling rock moment after the second chorus is even more jolting now.) “These Chains” remains a great pop song, and the stunning closer “A Few Words for the Dead” still sweeps you away. The big recipient of Hunter’s TLC here is “Born to Run,” a blues meander that stood still on the original album, but has gained a new fluidity in this mix. Rothery’s soulful guitar has rarely sounded better.

Radiation was always a pretty good little album, but in this new incarnation, it takes its rightful place as one of the great modern rock records of our time. The band has helpfully included the original mix for comparison, but really, there is none. This new version sets Radiation alongside Marillion’s best works, and lets it shine.

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But remixing old material is easy. Reinventing it, now, that’s more difficult. But I can’t think of anyone who has turned revisiting his own past into an art form the way Michael Roe has.

Roe is the guitarist and singer for the 77s, one of the best rock bands you’ve never heard. His last album of original material was 2004’s Fun With Sound – since then, he’s alternated between covers albums celebrating his influences, and reworkings of past material. With just about anyone else, I’d be complaining about a lack of new work. But Roe has found so many different mirrors onto his past lately that I haven’t been bored or upset by any of them.

The streak holds with Guadalupe, his new album. The 30-minute affair contains one new song, seven new versions of older Roe tunes, and one cover that should be familiar to fans. But what could have been a rehash is actually the most beautiful thing Roe has given us in years, a glorious sequel to his 2002 acoustic album Say Your Prayers. I’ve always said that Mike Roe alone with an acoustic guitar can break your heart. Here’s the proof.

Guadalupe begins with the new song, and it’s lovely. “U U” is a poem of faithful companionship, sung to both God and his fans. In less than two minutes, Roe sums up his career – all the songs he’s written, he says, he did not write alone. “I did it all with you, you…” His voice is weathered, but remains a tender instrument, and his guitar playing… well, it’s simply magic. I’ve been in the room and watched Roe do this, pull beauty from the air, and it’s life-changing.

The spell remains for the rest of the album. Every song is recast in acoustics, and each one is more beautiful than the last. Some have always been pretty – “Come and Gone” is one of Roe’s most tender songs, and “Come Down Here,” his marvelous prayer (written for the Lost Dogs), is his entire career in miniature. But even these are made more heartbreaking. “Dig My Heels,” from the 77s EP Direct, has transformed from a Tom Petty-ish mid-tempo rocker to a yearning folk song, and the change is glorious.

The album’s title track is pulled from Fun With Sound, and is dedicated to the late, great Gene Eugene. Its tribute is even more heartfelt here, Roe’s whispery voice cracking over blissful guitars. “I Need God,” a full-on gospel number on Safe as Milk, is here a stop-you-in-your-tracks confession. But it’s the two songs from 1994’s Drowning With Land in Sight that benefit from the new treatment the most. I’ve been hoping for a good version of “For Crying Out Loud” for years, and here it is. And “The Jig Is Up,” one of the finest 77s songs, sounds like a miniature epic here, Roe pulling out his electric for a soaring solo. It’s phenomenal.

Guadalupe ends with a brief run through Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More,” a song Roe has covered with the Lost Dogs. It’s a perfect coda to a gorgeous collection. Even if you’ve never heard of any of these songs, this record will move you. And if you’re a longtime fan, Guadalupe will fill your soul. Word is that Roe is writing original tunes for a new record now. That’s a good thing, but Guadalupe proves that returning to the well as often as he has can yield delightful dividends too. You can hear and buy Roe music here.

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Remaking a few songs is certainly interesting, but how about remaking an entire album?

That’s what Texas band Quiet Company have done on their new record, A Dead Man On My Back: Shine Honesty Revisited. Taylor Muse and company have essentially re-recorded every minute of their debut album, Shine Honesty, in an attempt to bring the past into the present.

I first bought Shine Honesty on a whim. It came out in 2006 on tiny Northern Records, a label I adored – I shudder to think that I might have missed QuietCo entirely without that connection. At the time, the band was a bedroom project for Muse, and it shows. The album was recorded cheaply, with synthesizers standing in for pianos and strings, and Muse’s voice wasn’t quite to the level that it would soon be. Shine Honesty is basically a series of intricate demos, a big ball of potential that would shortly be realized.

Of course, I didn’t know then that Quiet Company would quickly become one of my favorite bands, or that their third album, the amazing and scary We Are All Where We Belong, would rocket to the top of my list a mere five years later. I liked Shine Honesty anyway. I can pinpoint the moment I fell in love with my first Taylor Muse song – the little instrumental figure that follows the choruses in “Fashionabel,” this album’s second track. It still makes me grin.

So why remake Shine Honesty? Well, three reasons: to claim it back from Northern Records, to get these songs back in print, and to update the sound to represent the five-piece band Quiet Company has become. A Dead Man On My Back revitalizes these old songs with new arrangements and a fuller sound, and the result is like a new QuietCo album. And those are always welcome in my house.

I was initially surprised to hear just how closely these new versions hew to the older ones. The pianos sound real, the guitars are fuller, the drums better, and Muse’s voice shows seven years of improvement, but for the most part, the band is very respectful of the original Shine Honesty. (They even kept the little synth piccolo trill in “Fashionabel.”) The new versions allow the songs to step forward, and while they’re not Muse’s best, they’re still fine tunes.

I was struck this time by what a slow record this is. After “Fashionabel,” you have to wait for track seven, “The Emasculated Man and the City That Swallowed Him,” to hear something that rocks. QuietCo has become such a powerhouse band that these songs seem reserved in comparison. That’s not to say that piano-led numbers like “Then Came a Sudden Validation” are not engaging, particularly in these new versions. It’s just that when the live band does kick in, as on the ragged and wonderful new version of “Circumstance,” it sounds more like the Quiet Company I’ve come to know.

But as a reflective work, Dead Man is lovely. “So Gracefully” is the rough draft for half a dozen romantic Muse songs that came after, and it’s great to hear the roots of those sentiments here. “Tie Your Monster Down” is still a pleasant, strummy affair, and “Love is a Shotgun” is still a melodic delight. The coda of “Circumstance” (“…and the sun is shining on me again…”) now has a title: “I’ve Got a Lot of Problems With You People.” But it’s still very pretty.

Shine Honesty’s best songs are also its most faith-filled, and it’s no secret that Muse has turned from the beliefs he once held. But he performs these songs honestly and earnestly anyway. The grand “We Change Lives,” the album’s finest hour, here takes on a magnificence it barely hinted at before, and when Muse sings “Heaven outstretched its perfect arms to me,” there’s no sign of hoping to erase history. He lives it again, and it – and the chorus of hallelujahs that end the song – are glorious. Same goes for the album’s coda, “When You Pass Through the Waters,” and its baptismal imagery. Muse has resisted the urge to rewrite his past here, and I’m grateful.

Dead Man ends with a pair of bonus tracks, both written at the same time as the Shine Honesty material, and both more rocking than most of the album. In particular, “Gun Control Means Using Both Hands” lives up to its awesome title. It’s a fun trip in the wayback machine, and though both Muse and QuietCo have evolved considerably since these songs were written, Dead Man reclaims them with style. It’s a fine reminder of why I first fell in love with this band, and of just how far they’ve come.

You can buy that (and other QuietCo records) here.

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Next week, Billy Bragg and Frank Turner. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So. What a shitty couple of weeks.

As many of you know, I’m from Massachusetts. I grew up in a town just south of Boston, and I know a lot of people who live there. So you can imagine how quickly my heart leapt into my throat when I heard about the attacks on the Boston Marathon on Monday. It took a couple hours to track down the people I thought most likely to have been caught in the chaos, and to determine that they were all right.

They were. No one I know was hurt in Monday’s attacks. Now I’m just like the rest of you, waiting to hear more. It seems unlikely to me that they’ll find the people responsible, but I hope I’m wrong. Meanwhile, Boston has been showing the resilience that has characterized it for more than 200 years. I’m immensely proud to be from there, even though I pronounce the letter R whenever I encounter it, and at times like these, I wouldn’t choose to be from anywhere else.

So, what else happened? Oh yeah, Roger Ebert died. He was one of my most important influences as a reviewer – not so much his writing style as his approach and philosophy. Ebert was the one who taught me that it’s OK to say “I” in a review, and to make it at least partially about your own reaction to art. When Ebert loved a movie, he was eloquent, but when he hated one, he was unmatchable. There are so many great examples, but this one about 1998’s Armageddon is sort of the Platonic ideal of a negative review. Every sentence is like a precise cut with a scalpel. And it’s amazingly funny. I’ll miss reading Roger’s work, and I’ll miss hearing tales of his life and his indomitable spirit.

We lost a bunch of other people, too, like Jonathan Winters and Carmine Infantino. I would have written more about them last week, but I spent two days in bed, felled by some horrific virus. I sneezed and shivered through most of last week, and now I’m better, just in time for my entire state to be flooded. I’ve never owned a basement before, so I have no experience with pumping water out of one. I hope it’s not necessary, but with even more rain on the way, I’m worried.

And on top of all that, my cat died.

Her name was Kitty. My father rescued her from a shelter 19 years ago, and she lived with him for years before coming to live with me. In all that time, she never told us her name – you know how cats sometimes do that? – so we just called her Kitty. She was a marvelously affectionate cat, if you were me. If you weren’t me, she was difficult. As she got older, she grew less trusting of other people, which wasn’t a lot of fun for my friends who fed her while I was out of town. But every time I returned, she’d be waiting at the top of the stairs, and she’d purr and rub against my leg, so happy to see me.

Kitty suffered from hypothyroidism, and took pills for it every day for about six years. It wasn’t enough, though. I found her gasping for breath two Thursdays ago, splayed out on my couch. I brought her into the emergency room of our local animal hospital, and they removed a cup of liquid from around her lungs. Do you know how much a cup of liquid is? It’s a hell of a lot. The doctor told me that Kitty was suffering from a particular form of heart failure common in cats with hypothyroidism, and that her long-term prognosis, even with treatment, wasn’t good. Months, at best.

Rather than subject her to strenuous tests and treatments, we opted to make her as comfortable as we could. She stopped eating the next day, and refused any attempts to get food down her throat. She knew the end was near, and I think she wanted to face it on her terms. I don’t think she was in pain – that is, until Sunday, when she could barely move. She still refused to eat, but she would lap up water whenever I would bring it to her. I brought her up onto my bed on Sunday night, where she loved to sleep, and she padded over and draped herself across me, purring.

I fell asleep like that, and she must have clambered off during the night. I found her body the next morning, on the floor close to my bed. She was still warm, but she was gone. It’s been almost two weeks, and I still imagine she’s waiting for me at the top of the stairs when I arrive home, and I still wait for her to jump up onto my bed at night. Pets become like family members, and losing one is more painful than you’d think.

She was a great cat, and I’ll miss her.

* * * * *

So after all that, I wasn’t quite in the mood to write a silly music column last week. I hope you’ll forgive me for taking a week off. Every year, I swear I’m going to skip a week for my birthday, and I never do. By my count, I’m owed about 11 weeks off. But I still feel bad for taking one.

My plan last week was to write about the new Strokes and Depeche Mode albums, linked solely by the fact that both use the word “machine” in their titles. Yes, that was the remarkably tenuous connection I’d drawn. I don’t think that’s worth pursuing, but let me say a little about each record. I’ve never really liked the Strokes, and their choice to “expand” their sound to include ‘80s-inspired synthesizers on Comedown Machine doesn’t make me like them any more. There are a couple of interesting song ideas on here, but not much, and the synth thing feels like an affectation rather than an honest evolution.

Depeche Mode, however, have made a terrific new record with Delta Machine. I think the title is meant to connote blues played with electronics, and the album truly follows through on that. It’s slow and creepy and vicious and vibrant, Dave Gahan’s voice ringing out in fine form. This is the band’s 13th album, and they haven’t shaken up their template very much. But they’ve proven that it doesn’t need to be shaken up. They’re in a class of one, making the best Depeche Mode music they’ve made in some time.

If I’d followed through with my original plan, the last two paragraphs probably would have taken about 2,000 words, and ended up saying the same thing. You’re welcome. Let’s see if I can keep the trend toward brevity going with this week’s selections.

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Some people believe that music should have only one purpose, and that is to entertain.

While I love music that only wants to get your heart pumping and your toes tapping, I disagree with that notion completely. I find it reductive and limiting. Quite a lot of music is intended to do other things – rouse you, stoke your political flames, convey perspective, confuse and bewilder, set your synapses reeling. And some music is specifically intended to disturb you, to make you uncomfortable and upset. This is not a failing. The more creeped out you are, the more successful this music is.

At their bizarre best, the Flaming Lips are masters of that sort of thing. Yes, Wayne Coyne and his merry band are better known for their joyous anthems, like “Race for the Prize” and “Do You Realize,” but scratch that surface, and they’re an immensely weird band with a penchant for shiver-inducing atmosphere. This isn’t news – just check out anything and everything they’ve done since their last album, 2009’s intense Embryonic. Eschewing the very notion of albums altogether, the Lips have collaborated with a host of strange partners, released songs on thumb drives in gummy skulls and gummy fetuses, created a six-hour song, and then topped it with a 24-hour song, which was astoundingly unnerving.

The band seemed to be enjoying the freedom of releasing music in whatever form they chose, so their decision to return to the album format for their 13th effort, The Terror, seems odd. Whatever else The Terror accomplished, it had to explain why these nine songs were released together and in this format. And to its credit, it certainly does that. The Lips have made a cohesive suite of moods, perhaps their most consistent recording ever. It’s entirely of a piece.

I’d be hard-pressed to say there are songs on here, but it almost doesn’t matter. The Lips maintain a pervasive buzzing, unsettling atmosphere, even when there are soaring melodies, as on “Try to Explain.” It is not, strictly speaking, terrifying, but it is akin to someone whispering into the back of your neck for 55 minutes. There’s a darkness to this, one that is exemplified by the steam room pulse of the 13-minute “You Lust,” a song that brings the more disturbing Pink Floyd numbers to mind. The mood continues through the near-formless title track, with its oddly oscillating waves of bass, and the creepy “You Are Alone,” which sounds like being in the airlock as the oxygen escapes.

Things get more percussive in the album’s final stretches, but the gloomy mood prevails. “Butterfly, How Long It Takes to Die” was released alongside that six-hour song two years ago, but finds a much more fitting home here as the most propulsive song of the lot. The album ends with a reprise of its opening number, and though both the first and last tracks have optimistic titles (“Look…The Sun is Rising” and “Always There, In Our Hearts”), the rattling doom remains until the end.

Put simply, if you’re looking for another “She Don’t Use Jelly” or “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” you’re going to be disappointed. This is the furthest the Flaming Lips have gone in committing to a singular sound, one that prizes squirmy atmosphere over everything else. It’s hard to imagine this music being created by people, actually. True to its title, The Terror is a remarkable fulfillment of a particular vision, and that vision is to creep you the fuck out. It’s certainly not the band’s finest work, but it is possibly their most physically disturbing, and that counts for something.

Swedish synth duo The Knife has pretty much done away with songs, in the traditional sense, on their new album too. Shaking the Habitual is the follow-up to the glorious and concise Silent Shout, and is everything that record was not. Where Silent Shout was icy and carefully constructed, this new one is a sprawling 96 minutes long, contains songs that spiral out to ridiculous lengths, and seems ungodly random. The intention here seems to be to create music so abrasive and unnerving that it’s like a dare. Can you make it all the way through this thing?

I have, a few times, but only because I forced myself to. Where siblings Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer once reveled in their ability to subvert pop music, they’ve now decided that any trace of pop is the enemy. I cannot emphasize enough just how intentionally off-putting this record is. The opening tracks, “A Tooth for an Eye” and the nine-minute “Full of Fire,” are meandering collections of fierce beats and screams, with only occasional nods to melody. Same with “Raging Lung” and “Stay Out Here,” each hovering around 10 minutes, and the seven-minute instrumental “Networking.”

And those are probably my favorites here. Smack in the middle of this album is the 19-minute drone “Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized,” and though I definitely like a good drone, this one kills the album stone dead. It is, however, almost inhumanly disturbing. “A Cherry On Top” is similar, though it only drags on for nine minutes, and “Fracking Fluid Injection” is the ultimate patience tester, 10 minutes of squeaks and squiggles sequenced near the end of this monstrosity.

Yes, there are more concise pieces here. Closing track “Ready to Lose” is four minutes of almost pretty keyboards and Karin’s distinctive voice, here shorn of its more abrasive characteristics. Two tracks on the first disc constrain their beat-heavy meanders to around five minutes. And there are squonking interludes named after Margaret Atwood characters. As you can probably tell, this is the anti-Terror – it lurches from one mood to another throughout its running time. It takes a lot of work to absorb it all, and it’s never quite clear if all that effort is worthwhile.

I can’t say I outright dislike Shaking the Habitual. On the contrary, I admire the spirit it took to create something like this, something so upfront about its own unlikable nature. It’s definitely designed to shock and unsettle, and it does its job well. But unlike The Terror, it’s not something that I’ll be reaching for anytime soon. It’s possible to create something that is truly disturbing and yet strangely compelling. The Flaming Lips have done both, while the Knife could have used some time to work on the second part.

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There, that wasn’t so hard. I’m back in the saddle. Thanks for being patient with me.

Next week, some artists who have revisited the past, including Michael Roe, Quiet Company and Marillion. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

These days, there’s a seemingly infinite number of places to find new music.

Fans used to have to rely on the radio to hear new stuff. I remember listening to my boom box (yes, we called them that) with a blank tape at the ready, poised to hit record the second I heard the opening strains of whatever band’s new single I was dying to own. Then came MTV. Believe it or not, this network used to play music videos. Like, all the time, not just at 3 a.m. And they would play new stuff, and (most importantly) tell you the name of the band and the name of the album. I kept a notebook handy, because I am that much of a huge nerd.

But now? Between Spotify and Pandora and YouTube and Pitchfork Advance and four million websites with streams of new records, you can hear pretty much anything you want to. Read an intriguing-sounding band name in a review? Just plug that into a Google search and you can find out in seconds if they’re for you. It’s easier than ever to seek out new music to listen to, new bands to enjoy.

For me, though, you can’t beat a local record store. It’s more than a place to pick up CDs and vinyl, it’s a community hub. It’s a place where like-minded music fans can connect, can trade recommendations, can spin unknown pleasures and get immediate feedback. Yes, I take full advantage of the resources of the internet, and I find a lot of new music that way. But my favorite place to discover new stuff is Kiss the Sky, the best record store in Chicagoland.

The staff at Kiss the Sky has been invaluable lately, as I’ve tried to keep my resolution to try as many new bands as possible. I have three on tap this week, and I bought two of them after recommendations from Mike Messerschmidt, who looks like Terry O’Quinn from Lost, but knows his shit. And after nine years, he knows what I like, what will flip my switch. In both cases, he was absolutely right. In fact, those who paid attention to last week’s column will already know which albums I’m talking about.

Let’s start with my new favorite band, Little Green Cars.

This quintet is from Ireland. Your first clue should be that there’s an O’Regan, an O’Rourke and an O’Leary in the band, and the O’Leary’s first name is Donagh. Their debut album is called Absolute Zero, and you can find it occupying the number six spot on my top 10 list right now, ahead of the likes of Steven Wilson and Johnny Marr. These guys (and one girl) are barely in their twenties, and I ordinarily have a physical aversion to jumping on the bandwagon, particularly when it comes to young bands and their first albums. But this one is just awesome.

Imagine the harmonies of Fleet Foxes married to the jangly power pop of a band like Shoes, and you have a pretty good idea of the arresting first single, “Harper Lee.” The song slowly springs to life, Stevie Appleby’s shaky voice ringing out over strumming acoustic guitars, but when the chorus kicks in, it’s like the clouds suddenly parting. It’s the greatest “oo-we-oo-ooh” I’ve heard in a long time, and though the song doesn’t offer much more, it’s still a great way to open things.

The harmonies are the hallmark of Little Green Cars. Just listen to the rising waves of vocals that wash over “Angel Owl,” or the mass of singing voices on the Arcade Fire-ish “Big Red Dragon.” (“I’m not gonna wait for it, oh my god…”) And if propulsive rock with delicious vocal arrangements were all this band offered, they’d still be great. But Absolute Zero has a number of surprises in store. The first one comes at track three – “My Love Took Me Down to the River to Silence Me” introduces Faye O’Rourke on lead vocals, and she brings a Florence Welch energy to the proceedings. The song is marvelous, putting a different twist on their sound.

And then, just when you’re thinking you have the band figured out – sweet guitar-pop in a sea of harmonies – they spring “Red and Blue” on you. The music consists entirely of an oscillating organ line, and the five-part vocals are all auto-tuned – think Bon Iver’s “Woods.” The effect is mesmerizing, and what could have been a simple little ditty is something altogether stranger and more interesting. That leads into “The Kitchen Floor,” an emotional gut punch about ending a painful relationship. O’Rourke sings this one too, over a subtle electric piano bed. It’s wrenching and wonderful.

Little Green Cars keep the quality high all the way to the end, the delicate acoustic piece “Goodbye Blue Monday,” and by the time it’s done, you’ll be astonished that this is the band’s debut. There’s enough honey-throated goodness here to sustain an entire career. Absolute Zero is an accomplished work that belies the age and experience of its authors, and a damn fine album that any band would be proud to call its own. It is, thus far, the discovery of 2013.

Young Dreams isn’t far behind, though. I’m not sure how Mike hears about bands like this, but I’m glad he does. This band’s name is the worst thing about them. They’re a 12-piece pop collective from Norway, led by Mathias Tellez, who produced their first album, Between Places. And again we have a confident debut album with a fresh sound and a sure step.

Young Dreams is everything I wish Animal Collective could be. My favorite material from Panda and Avey has been their most Brian Wilson-influenced, and Young Dreams takes that foundation and builds a gleaming tower on it. There are gauzy synthesizers in abundance, but there are also real strings and glockenspiels and horns and glorious, glorious harmonies. Best of all, there are songs – deeply melodic, complex yet still catchy songs, with new surprises every few seconds.

Opener “Footprints” sets the tone. The fuzzy synths and electronic drum patter will be familiar to Animal Collective fans, but when Tellez sings, his clear and bright-eyed voice sends things skyward. The chorus sports a gorgeous vocal arrangement, and the extra “ah” in the refrain that follows seals the deal. This song is terrific, and it only gets better as it goes along. “Wounded Hearts Forever” picks up the ball and runs with it, opening with a synth orchestra and ending with a wondrous keyboard dance party. In between, the Beach Boys melodies keep on coming – the chorus is particularly Wilson-esque.

By this point, you’ll likely be overwhelmed by the physical sound of this record. The band obviously labored over it, layering color atop color, and the result is simultaneously airy and massive. The arrangements are certainly fussy, but all of that precision somehow results in a record that feels unbounded, one that takes flight early and doesn’t come back down. “First Days of Something” is like a mix of Dream Academy and Vampire Weekend, merging Paul Simon guitars with piccolos and blipping keys, but it works beautifully, the song climbing and climbing until it breaks our atmosphere.

The band’s ambitions truly become clear on the 11-minute “The Girl Who Taught Me to Drink and Fight,” an epic of SMiLE-esque proportions. Though parts of it may feel like jams, this is clearly a carefully-thought-out piece, swinging from section to section with nimble joy. When the vocals come soaring back in at the eight minute mark, it’s simply glorious. The album ends with the song that shares the band’s name, and it’s a brief benediction, summing up most of what’s great about this record. You can almost forgive them for choosing the name Young Dreams.

Between Places is a stunning debut, an attempt to make Pet Sounds right out of the gate. It falls short, certainly – it’s at times too committed to its sonic overload, and that gets a bit monotonous. But if this band can hone and refine their sound, they’re going to make a masterpiece one day. Between Places comes remarkably close.

So those were Mike’s recommendations, and I’m thankful. The third of my new-to-me bands this week comes from Mike’s fellow Kiss the Sky employee Rob Hale, who, I swear, listens to absolutely everything. One day he’ll be waxing ecstatic about some Belgian prog band, the next putting on some vintage Art Blakey jazz session. You never know what he’s going to like, but since he has just about the broadest taste I’ve ever encountered, I pay attention when he gives me a heads up.

His new obsession is And So I Watch You From Afar, another group from Ireland. Their work is largely instrumental, and eminently danceable despite its proggier leanings. Their third album is called All Hail Bright Futures, and Rob believes it was written as a single piece of music, then cut into tracks during recording. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s right – the album as a whole is an explosion of joy, a guitar-drenched party from another planet, and it feels of a piece.

Musicians will certainly admire this band’s chops. The ringing guitar line on “Big Thinks Do Remarkable” is tricky and ultra-fast, and the band locks into some complicated grooves on “Ambulance” and “Mend and Make Safe.” This is not easy material to play, and it was obviously hammered into shape over months of rehearsal and refinement. But that makes it sound stuffy, and this is anything but. On the contrary, this stuff rocks – just listen to “Like a Mouse,” all of 2:39 and every second of it head-bangingly fun.

Adding to the sense that this was one long piece of music initially is “The Stay Golden,” an eight-minute epic divided across three tracks. It glides from kinetic rave-up to blissful, wistful finale, complete with chiming trumpet. It’s definitely the most accomplished thing here, if not the most fun. That title goes to “Ka Ba Ta Bo Da Ka,” a delightful piece which features those syllables sung in rounds over a shifting guitar party, with a big riff showing up around the three minute mark. The album ends with the seven-minute “Young Brave Minds,” a slowly-building summation of everything this band does well. It’s grand.

You may think you don’t like bands like And So I Watch You From Afar, with their distinct lack of lyrics and their prog sensibilities. But check them out. They’re a mostly-instrumental band for people who don’t think they like mostly-instrumental bands. All Hail Bright Futures is certainly head-spinningly complex, but you won’t even notice over the sound of how much fun it is. Thanks for the recommendation, Rob.

Next week, probably the Strokes and Depeche Mode. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date.

See you in line Tuesday morning.