So, what did you do this week?

Oh, me? I just hung out with a $30 million, 50-foot-wide electromagnet and watched as trained professionals moved it down a major Long Island street, loaded it onto a barge and sent it out to sea. No big deal.

The magnet is the centerpiece of one of our experiments at Fermilab, and since it would cost that $30 million to build another one, we’re shipping this one, which was built at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the 1990s. We’re sending it on a 3,200-mile land and sea journey that will cost 10 times less. It will also look amazing as it rolls through the streets of Illinois in late July.

If you’re interested in following the ring’s journey, you can do so here. And if you want to see what it looks like, check out the videos here. Yes, I saw this in person. No, it’s not a spaceship. Yes, my job is pretty cool.

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So here’s something interesting for you to ponder: Hanson is an indie band.

It’s been 16 years since their out-of-nowhere cuddly-pop hit “Mmm-Bop.” It’s been 13 years since their last major-label album, This Time Around. And the Hanson brothers, God bless them, just keep on doing what they do. They own their own label, 3 Car Garage, and they produce their own records. They handle their own touring and marketing, steering every ship in their fleet. They’ve just released their eighth record, Anthem, and it’s another step in a musical evolution not beholden to hits or trends. Hanson just does what they do.

For a while now, they’ve done it under the radar, slowly evolving into a pretty slick pop combo. Their last album, 2010’s Shout It Out, was their best, incorporating elements of Motown and Stax-Volt soul while keeping the focus on Taylor Hanson’s top-notch voice and piano. Shout It Out brought the band some much-deserved attention, and for many, it was their first indication in years that the Hanson brothers were still playing together. While fans saw it as a gradual evolution, latecomers were stunned by the huge leap in quality.

Anthem doesn’t quite push them forward as far, but for the most part it’s still a nice leap from Shout It Out. The star of this album is Isaac Hanson’s guitar – this is by far the loudest, most rock-oriented Hanson album. In fact, the first four tracks represent the most ass-kicking opening shot of their career. “Fired Up” begins things with a ‘70s rock feel, a nimble time-jumping riff and a sweet solo from Isaac. “I’ve Got Soul” brings in the horns for a surprisingly complex riff and a catchy hook, “You Can’t Stop Us” feels like funky Lenny Kravitz, and single “Get the Girl Back” is just boatloads of old-school, horn-drenched soul.

If, by this point, you are not up and dancing, an idiot grin on your face, then Hanson may not be the band for you. Their brand of pop has nothing on its mind but fun, and if you’re looking for piercing lyrics, you need to look elsewhere. They drop Shakespeare references throughout the marvelous, Beatlesque “Juliet,” but they’re the obvious ones: “Through your window breaks the rising sun, by any other name you’d still be beautiful…” I can’t bring myself to care, though, because the song – all glorious harmonies and tricky piano melodies – is just great.

Anthem’s second half smoothes things out a bit too much. “Already Home” is pleasant enough, with a strong ascending chorus, but the limp “For Your Love” is the record’s first real stumble. From there, it’s a stretch of songs that don’t quite pack the punch of the early numbers. “Lost Without You” has that Diane Warren sheen (thankfully, she had nothing to do with it), while “Cut Right Through Me” tries to make the most of its simple riff, but finds it wanting. The band still sounds muscular, but the songs take a few steps back.

Hanson rights the ship with “Tragic Symphony,” one of their finest tracks. A quick-stepping guitar shuffle augmented by slippery strings, this song explodes into a chorus worthy of Michael Jackson in his heyday. This attitude is exactly what the previous four tracks were missing, and it’s like the sun breaking through the clouds. This is what Hanson should be doing, not mediocre pop songs like “Lost Without You.” Final songs “Tonight” and “Save Me From Myself” put the spotlight back on Taylor’s piano and the horns. Anthem ends well, but it’s a shame about the sag in the middle.

For that reason, I can’t say this album is better than Shout It Out, even though it pushes Hanson in some interesting new directions. Isaac truly steps up here, handling many of the lead vocals and cranking up his amps, and the band is all the better for his contributions. Songs like “I’ve Got Soul” and “Tragic Symphony” point the way forward – soulful, explosive rock with super-catchy melodies. When they stick to what they do best, Hanson smacks down all their naysayers. When Anthem is on, as it is most of the time, it’s loud, catchy and fun. I hope the next one has a better batting average, but this one’s pretty damn good. If you’ve forgotten they exist, Anthem will be a pleasant surprise.

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A few months ago, I saw Sigur Ros live for the first time. A few months from now, I will see them live again. I don’t know if it’s possible to repeat one of the best musical experiences of my life, but I’m gonna try.

For 16 years, this Icelandic collective has been pulling off a fascinating trick – they’ve constantly morphed and changed, but they have never sounded like anyone except themselves. Part of that is in their basic makeup. It’s hard to overstate how singular Jonsi Birgisson’s voice is, and the band’s calling card has always been lush, otherworldly arrangements, like movie soundtracks from another galaxy. But over their last three albums, they’ve embraced cheery pop, spare balladry and ambient expanses of sound, and through it all, they’ve remained identifiably Sigur Ros.

Their seventh full-length album, Kveikur, accomplishes the same feat, sending the band spiraling in a new, more intense direction while somehow retaining its core. That’s even more impressive when you realize that this is Sigur Ros’ first album as a trio – keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson departed last year. They haven’t stripped down to accommodate their smaller size, though. If anything, they’ve bulked up – Kveikur is one of the loudest, most fascinatingly abrasive albums the band has made, on par with the second half of the parentheses album at times.

Leadoff track “Brennisteinn” throws down a gauntlet – it’s almost sludge-metal, plodding through a snowdrift universe with 50-ton boots. It’s one of the most bone-crushing experiences Sigur Ros has given us, and if the rest of the album can’t quite match up, it’s because the band chooses beauty more often than you’d expect. “Hrafntinna” soars on strings and horns, caressing the bed of jarring percussion and atonal shifting sand beneath it. “Isjaki” is practically a pop song, its chiming clean guitar lines leading into a chorus that could fit on the radio, were it not sung in Icelandic. And yet, there’s still something off, something alien about it – the almost dissonant strings, perhaps.

Kveikur is a remarkably concise 48 minutes, and even when you want it to sprawl, it doesn’t. “Yfirbord” utilizes the Kid A vocal effect, creating a foreboding landscape, but it’s over in 4:19. Even the six-minute title track, which sounds like Sigur Ros’ idea of a Black Sabbath song, doesn’t waste a moment, getting right to the memorable vocal melody and ushering us into that freefall of a chorus. It’s the opposite of their last record, the expansive Valtari, and yet it doesn’t feel truncated. Only the closer, “Var,” feels cut off before its time.

And there are moments of breathtaking wonder here, hiding among the murk. “Rafstramur” stands proudly next to anything on Takk, still the band’s most joyful work, and the grand “Blapradur” elevates its gentle guitar figure into a soaring, arms-raised masterwork. The band played this one live at the show I saw, and it was magnificent – thousands of people transported, riding the waves as they crested and broke. Sigur Ros is trying on new clothes here, working in new areas, but they still possess their very particular magic. The aggressive Kveikur is a departure in some ways, but a reaffirming in others. They’re evolving, but they’re still like no other band on earth.

* * * * *

So it’s time for the Second Quarter Report. This is what my top 10 list would look like if I were forced to release it now. It’s been a fairly depressing second quarter, not adding a whole lot to the first quarter list aside from a sparking new number one. Here’s what it looks like:

#10. Justin Timberlake, The 20/20 Experience.
#9. Little Green Cars, Absolute Zero.
#8. Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City.
#7. Sigur Ros, Kveikur.
#6. Laura Mvula, Sing to the Moon.
#5. My Bloody Valentine, m b v.
#4. The Joy Formidable, Wolf’s Law.
#3. Everything Everything, Arc.
#2. Frightened Rabbit, Pedestrian Verse.
#1. Daft Punk, Random Access Memories.

And with that, we’re halfway through the year. I hope the second half picks up steam. I’ll be using the next couple weeks to catch up on some things, including that amazing Laura Mvula album sitting at number six. I’m still absorbing the new Daniel Amos, which was emailed out to Kickstarter supporters last week, so that may end up with a slot. Janelle Monae’s new album sounds like it will be fantastic. Beyond that, who can tell?

Also this week, the great Texas enigma Jandek released his new album, The Song of Morgan. It’s a 9-CD box set of piano works, apparently. I doubt anything the man ever does will end up on my list, but I’m always fascinated by the directions he chooses to go. More on that in the coming weeks, most likely.

And I’m off to the new AudioFeed Festival next weekend, so perhaps some thoughts on that. So many options. You have to come back next week now and see which one I pick. 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.

I almost didn’t buy Kanye West’s Yeezus.

It’s not because I’m not Mr. West’s biggest fan, although I’m not. I think he has a huge amount of raw talent as a producer, arranger and record-maker, but he’s never found a way to focus that skill. Virtually every critic I can think of hailed 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as a masterpiece, but I found it overly long, tedious and self-indulgent. (And those were its good qualities! Bam! Still got it.)

Besides, disliking a musician has never stopped me from buying their records before. I haven’t really enjoyed Tori Amos’ work for a long time, and I’m sure to buy the new Ministry album, laughably titled From Beer to Eternity, despite flat-out hating a lot of what Al Jourgensen has done for the past decade and a half. I like Kanye West as a sonic craftsman better than I like either Amos or Jourgensen these days, and what I’d heard of Yeezus before plunking down my cash was, at worst, fascinating.

And in fact, as I suspected, my problems with this album have nothing to do with the music. West has taken an extraordinary left turn here, darkening up his sound with industrial-tinged synths and abrasive… well, everything. This record keeps you tense, as if suspended over knives, waiting for the ropes to break. The helmeted geniuses in Daft Punk co-produced about half of it, Justin Vernon sings on it, and Rick Rubin helped West assemble it into a lean, 40-minute whole. It’s quite unlike anything West has done – there’s almost a diseased feel to some of it, and you never know where he’s going to go next. It’s riveting.

No, as usual, my issue with West is his persona, manifesting in his lyrics. I have no idea what the man is like in person, but as a public figure – and as a lyricist – he’s a self-obsessed, obnoxious, careless, misogynistic asshole. I realized, reading back over my previous reviews, that I haven’t called him out nearly enough for his thoughtless, objectifying words, sprayed out like graffiti over his impeccable music. West’s lyrics have always made me uncomfortable, and never more so than on Yeezus.

So why now? Why, after giving strong reviews to four albums in a row, ignoring the words and concentrating on the brilliant music, am I finally raising my voice? I think it’s been gradual. I’m definitely not the same person who called The Marshall Mathers LP the best album of 2000, and although I still contend that Eminem was perpetuating a grand-scale irresponsible satire, I don’t find it nearly as funny anymore. I’ve changed. At least, I hope I’ve changed, in 13 years.

Granted, most of what you’ll find on Yeezus isn’t any different from the content of most rap records. Why am I so concerned about West? Because he’s a genius, honestly. Most socially unconscious rap fails with me because its music is as poor as its lyrics. The same cannot be said of West’s work. On “Blood on the Leaves” alone, he stitches together an unsettling epic, allowing himself to duet with Nina Simone (her “Strange Fruit” is copiously sampled) in a startlingly effective way. His music is as innovative as his lyrics are depressingly average.

Now, I want to be clear. I have no issue with any of the words West uses. That’s not the point. It’s entirely possible to fill your album with the word fuck and still have a social conscience. But West has no concern about the effects of his words. The lyrics on Yeezus were reportedly completed in a couple of weeks, and belted out at the last minute, so we’re getting the unfiltered Kanye West here. And it’s an ugly picture. Right from the first song, “On Sight,” in which he presents this charming couplet: “Black dick all in your spouse again, and I know she like chocolate men, she got more niggas off than Cochran.” Then he shouts about not giving a fuck.

West’s view of women is on full display here. Every woman he mentions is either a bitch, or owns a sweet pussy. That’s it. Women are bitches with pussies. That’s the entirety of his breadth of understanding. The most romantic thing he writes here is in the soul-styled closer “Bound 2”: “I wanna fuck you hard on the sink, after that give you something to drink.” It turns out, though, that “something” isn’t what you expect: “Step back, can’t get spunk on the mink.” “Blood on the Leaves” is largely about how bitches get pregnant and ruin your life. (Hope you liked that one, Kim.) And the repugnant “I’m In It” includes this immortal line: “Eating Asian pussy, all I need is sweet and sour sauce.”

But the one that gave me the most pause this time is “New Slaves.” You’ve probably heard it by now – he performed it on Saturday Night Live, and released a video. It is, for all intents and purposes, the single from this album without a single. He spends a lot of time on this song talking about how rappers and athletes are the new slaves, and how he refuses to kowtow – “there’s leaders and there’s followers, but I’d rather be a dick than a swallower” – before getting to his criticism of the U.S. prison system: “See that privately owned prison, get your piece today, they prolly all in the Hamptons braggin’ ‘bout what they made…”

And then? And then he raps about raping the prison owner’s wife. “Fuck you and your Hampton house, I’ll fuck your Hampton spouse, came on her Hampton blouse and in her Hampton mouth.” It’s vile beyond belief. The worst part of it, to me, is that the victim here isn’t even the intended target. West treats raping someone’s wife like smashing the windows on someone’s car – a way to take revenge. It’s disgusting in its casualness.

Once that lyric hit, I had several conversations with some of my favorite women about it. Most said they would not be able to buy this record, no matter how good the music is. I’ve never come closer to feeling this way. I’ve always been able to find the good in music and hold onto it – I’ve lately been writing reviews of every Frank Zappa album, and his sheer musical genius helps me through his ugly, crude humor. Until now, West’s ability to completely rewrite the rules of hip-hop each time out has outshone the fact that he’s a sexist, irresponsible jackass. But Yeezus stopped me in my tracks.

I can’t really take the high road here, and condemn West for contributing to a culture of misogyny and rape, although he is. I did buy the album, in the end. I did so for two reasons, one not so good, and one hopefully better. First, I wanted it, because I am a collector and a historian, and this will likely one day be seen as an important album in West’s career. My picture of him as an artist wasn’t complete without this. That’s definitely not a good reason, and I know it.

But second, buying it allowed me to listen to it more closely, which allowed me to write this. And I hope just by laying bare the pervasive sexism and vileness here I’ve done some good. I know many would say that West is just playing a character, purposely trying to offend. Even if he is, the words he puts into this character’s mouth matter, and so far, he’s not saying anything that makes his rampant ugliness worth it. There are no themes to his work, other than his own self-absorption. If West is simply telling a story about a horrible human being, it’s a story that has not developed beyond its first chapters.

The shame of all this – and the reason I bought the album, really – is that West is a damn fine artist. His lyrics sometimes feel like scrawling graffiti over the Mona Lisa, so masterfully crafted are his tracks. Yeezus is no exception. My fervent hope is that one day, 20 or so years from now, a middle-aged Kanye West looks back on these early albums with embarrassment and shame. I hope he’s still making records then too, brilliant pieces of work, and filling them with clever, insightful rhymes. One day, I hope we’ll think of Yeezus as a necessary step to a more enlightened Kanye West. Because right now, very little of it feels necessary.

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Thanks for indulging me last week – I took a week off to celebrate (well, as much as a cranky old man can celebrate) my 39th birthday. And then I drop this review on you. Yeah, I know. Next week, I’ll be back to my breezy old self, talking about Hanson and Sigur Ros.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Today is my birthday. I’m 39 years old.

That means not only can I see 40 from here, but I can see his raised middle finger and his contemptible sneer. I can almost hear him saying, “It’s colonoscopies and aching joints and hearing loss from here on out. It’s a long, slow road to the nursing home. Have fun!” Pretty soon, 40 will be a distant memory – that is, if my senile old brain can even recall it when I’m eating the drug-laced Jell-O with my dentures out.

I’m old, is what I’m saying. Ancient. A relic of a bygone era. And I’m finding as I age that it’s not my own advancing years that get to me, it’s the ages of those around me. My nephew Luke is one year old. I have no idea where that year went. His mother, my sister, is 36. (Or, as she calls it, “twenty-sixteen.”) My best friends are all graying or balding. I have friends who have teenage kids. And these friends are my age. This means I am old enough to have teenaged kids.

On an average day, I certainly don’t feel old. But I can feel the passage of time. I’m very different now than I was in my younger days. (For instance, I am apparently now the kind of person who says things like “in my younger days.”) My teenaged self wouldn’t even recognize me. I take conference calls, I wear shirts with collars, I get up every morning to run, I have a 401k. In fact, I’m pretty sure my teenaged self would want to beat me up.

Only a few things have remained the same. One of them is that I mark time with pop culture. Anniversaries of my favorite albums freak me out. (Did you know that Jellyfish’s amazing Spilt Milk is 20 years old this year? The first check I ever bounced, I wrote to buy Spilt Milk.) Richard Linklater has just released Before Midnight, the third in his walking-and-talking trilogy. The first one came out when I was 20, the second when I was 30. And for the eighth time since I’ve been paying attention, we’re about to get a new Doctor.

I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who my whole life, so I’m able to chart my timeline by the show’s. I started watching at eight or so, captivated by reruns of Tom Baker’s time in the role. By the time I hit middle school, my local PBS station had moved on to Peter Davison’s episodes, and with the advent of the VCR, I was ready to capture them. I watched the Davison run probably 40 times as a young teen – he was truly my Doctor. The show was taken off the air when I was 15, and I remember being devastated, despite having never seen the sixth or seventh Doctors.

The TV movie happened when I was a senior in college, about to graduate. It was terrible, and I felt like I’d grown out of Doctor Who. Silly me. The show returned to TV screens when I was 31, and even though it wasn’t great for an unfathomably long time, it rekindled my love for the ropey old classic series. David Tennant came along the next year, and made the role his own, before Matt Smith – my absolute favorite actor to play the part since I was a kid – breathed new life into the show. With showrunner Steven Moffat at the helm, Smith has presided over a golden age in Doctor Who. And I’m so glad to have seen it.

Now Smith has decided to move on. His tenure as the 11th Doctor will end this Christmas, meaning we only have two more episodes with him. On the one hand, it’s not enough. I’m not ready for Matt to leave, not ready for another seismic shift, another reminder of the passage of time. But on the other hand, that’s what’s magical about the show: change doesn’t kill it. It can shudder through the loss of its lead actor, its face and voice, and come through even stronger.

I like to think my lifelong Who fandom has taught me that lesson. Time can take its toll, all of life can change around me, and I’ll still be fine. I’ll still be me, even though I look and act different. There’s nothing better than realizing that change won’t kill you. Today is my birthday. I’m 39 years old. And I say, bring on the future. Let’s see what’s next.

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Both of this week’s review subjects make me feel old.

I can’t help it. Whenever I tackle a long-running band, I can’t stop myself from thinking about where I was – and who I was – when I first heard them. For instance, I’ve been a Megadeth fan since around 1988, when I was 14. I heard Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying, and that was it for me. This was shortly after being indoctrinated by Metallica’s then-new …And Justice for All, my first real metal album. But Megadeth shortly overtook them in my heart when they released Rust in Peace in 1990.

There was a time, honest to god, when I would have physically fought anyone who dissed that album. Rust in Peace still stands as one of the best speed metal albums ever recorded, and I still love it, but man, I was devoted to it when I was 16. I adored it enough that the more melodic groove-metal direction Dave Mustaine took his band after that felt like a betrayal.

When I worked at Face Magazine, I wrote a pair of “Dear Dave Mustaine” reviews in the form of open letters to him. 1997’s Cryptic Writings made me sad, but 1999’s painful Risk made me angry. Pop metal of the worst kind, I called it. An abomination, a travesty, the worst thing I’d ever heard. It was as if Dave had personally stabbed me in the back. I felt that strongly about it. I wanted my Megadeth hard, heavy, fast and powerful, and this was like Bon Jovi in comparison.

But I stuck with them, and I was rewarded. In 2004, after a brief absence, Mustaine reformed Megadeth and burst out of the gate with a speed metal trilogy worthy of the early days. I wrote my third Dear Dave Mustaine column for the second installment, United Abominations, and begged forgiveness. The fury was back, and before long, so was bassist Dave Ellefson, contributing to the best damn Megadeth album in nearly 20 years, Thir13een. Man, that was good stuff, and it reminded me of what it was like to be 16 years old and in love with metal.

If I really think about it, though, I’ve been praising Mustaine for stagnating. I don’t want to say that Risk is a good record, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate the experimental streak that runs through it. Who says Megadeth can’t record a disco-infused song like “Crush ‘Em,” or a poppy tune like “Breadline”? I mean, why not? Granted, they didn’t do it well, but was I really saying that Dave Mustaine should remain trapped in a speed metal box for his whole life? Mustaine is 51 now, and every time he’s tried to break out of that box, his fans (myself included) have slapped him down.

You see what I mean when I say my 16-year-old self would want to beat me up?

It’s exactly that newfound perspective, however, that is allowing me to enjoy Megadeth’s 14th album, Super Collider. True to its title, this record collides virtually every style from the band’s catalog, and adds a couple. So yeah, we get the faster metal of “Kingmaker” and “Built for War,” but we also get songs that sound like they could appear on Cryptic Writings and Risk without trouble. There’s an element of meat-and-potatoes hard rock to this album, eschewing complex arrangements for thick chords and straightforward riffs. The title track is perhaps the worst offender – it’s a song Lynyrd Skynyrd might reject for being too simple, with a moderately catchy chorus and no metal showmanship.

And yeah, the fans hate it. But I hope this time Mustaine doesn’t care. His heart is clearly in this stuff, and I’m ashamed that I didn’t hear that before. He really does give his all to mid-tempo rockers like “Burn” and “Off the Edge.” Where once I would have despaired to hear him shout “burn, baby, burn ‘cause it feels so good,” now I kind of admire him for it. He has to know the reaction he’s going to get, and he did it anyway. The most experimental material is in the latter half of the album, from the crawling epic “Dance in the Rain” (with David Draiman of Disturbed lending his voice) to the Rivers Cuomo-does-metal melodies of “Don’t Turn Your Back.”

And then there’s “The Blackest Crow,” the one that steps the furthest off the reservation. A creepy banjo line with fiddle accents starts things off, and though it gets heavier, the song retains its Deliverance feel. It’s the best thing here by (ahem) a country mile, and easily the riskiest thing Mustaine has done since… well, you know. But it pays off. The album includes a cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Cold Sweat,” which should be a novelty, but oddly fits right in. And bonus track “A House Divided” brings in a mariachi trumpet, to surprisingly fine effect.

What does all this mean? Isn’t Mustaine doing exactly what I hated him for in 1999? Well, yes, so it’s clear that I’ve changed. I’m willing to allow him the latitude to try new things under the Megadeth banner, and sometimes fail. (Some of these songs fail spectacularly, actually.) Change can be good and bad, but the willingness to change is always a good thing. Or so says the older and wiser me. So, Dear Dave Mustaine, I’m going to give you this one. Super Collider is a bold step away from the hard and the fast, but I’ve learned that the rules don’t need to be similarly hard and fast. Keep doing what you’re doing. I’m listening.

(As an aside, Super Collider could not have come out at a more apt time for me. I now work at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which collaborates with CERN in Switzerland on experiments using the Large Hadron Collider. Pictures of that collider, as well as the CMS detector our scientists work on, adorn the cover and liner notes of this album. I brought it in to work this week, and it was a big hit, particularly the photo of Mustaine and his merry men pretending to work in the LHC tunnel. Hilarious.)

* * * * *

And finally, here are the Barenaked Ladies to teach me the same lesson in a different way.

Listening to BNL has always made me feel young. They were a college band for me, and the smartass 19-year-old I was responded well to tunes like “Grade 9” and “Be My Yoko Ono.” But they were never a novelty band, as they proved repeatedly – 1994’s Maybe You Should Drive is mainly straightforward and pretty, and later songs like “I Live With It Every Day” and “I’ll Be That Girl” showed off a darker side that few casual fans knew they had.

I’ve always liked BNL more than casually, though. I saw them live at least half a dozen times, and stuck with them through their fallow periods. But when Steven Page – the one with the really interesting voice – left in 2009, I figured it would spell the end for the band. And in retrospect, I wish it had. The maudlin All In Good Time, released in 2010, showcased a confused and angry group of musicians, taking it out on their former singer. Page, meanwhile, quietly moved on, releasing his glimmering solo bow Page One that same year. I wondered if the remaining Ladies could find a way to move past their own acrimony as well.

And now here’s Grinning Streak, the second Page-less BNL album, and they probably think this is what moving on sounds like. The album consists of 12 straight-ahead pop tunes, often hearkening back to the old sound without capturing it. It’s mostly breezy and positive, but it’s also almost utterly faceless. Ed Robertson has a fine voice, but it’s not one that sticks with you, and the songs are completely forgettable. I’m never going to hate this band, but Grinning Streak sounds forced, like they’re trying to remember when they were great.

Only two songs – “Boomerang” and “Odds Are” – bring anything resembling the old goofy fire. The band experiments with programmed beats here and there, particularly on “Keepin’ It Real,” but they’re so pedestrian that they might as well have had Tyler Stewart play them live. Robertson sings all but one, the disastrous “Daydreamin’,” which keyboardist Kevin Hearn croaks out. “Daydreamin’” is the only one that is truly awful. Most of these songs are just boring, and from this band, that’s a damn shame. Even Robertson’s lyrics, usually much wittier than they’re given credit for, seem average and uninspired here.

The tragedy is, this album isn’t flat-out bad. It’s just lifeless. It’s a cautionary tale – here’s what happens when you can’t change, you can’t adapt, you remain stuck where you are. There’s no shame in growing beyond who you used to be. I’m nothing like who I was, and couldn’t act like it if I tried. That’s the lesson of Grinning Streak. I wish the band had learned it before making this album, but we all have to figure these things out as we go. It’s part of growing up, growing older, living. And I hope to do a lot more of all three.

* * * * *

Thanks to everyone who wished me well today. I’m grateful for all of you. Next week, either Black Sabbath or two women named Laura. 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.