We have a backlog of great new releases that I need to get through before the September To Beat All Septembers begins.

We’re up to 32 new releases next month that I’m interested in, and the following month is shaping up to be just as good. Here’s what’s hitting in just the first few weeks of October: Deltron 3030, Dr. Dog, Tired Pony, Blind Boys of Alabama (produced by Justin Vernon), Fates Warning, Moby, Justin Timberlake, the Field, Soulfly, Aaron Sprinkle, Of Montreal, Panic at the Disco, Cage the Elephant, Paul McCartney, the Dismemberment Plan, Pearl Jam, the Head and the Heart, the Avett Brothers, Flying Colours, a new collection from Jellyfish, an acoustic live record from Alex Chilton, and the first Kitchens of Distinction album in 19 years.

So yeah, the flood is coming. This week, I thought I’d offer short takes on a few of the albums I’ve been enjoying lately, in the hopes that they won’t get lost in the deluge. I’m not spending a lot of space on these records, but don’t let that fool you. They’re all very much worth hearing and owning.

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Earlier this month, I got a chance to see the Congregation rock a particle physics laboratory.

That’s right, this Chicago eight-piece soul outfit played Fermilab, my place of employment. The connection isn’t as daft as it seems – Congregation guitarist Charlie Wayne is, in real life, astrophysicist Dan Hooper, and he works at the lab. I’ve been hearing about Dan’s band for a long time, but I’ve always missed out on seeing them. I realize now how silly I’ve been – the Congregation put on a tremendous show. You might think it would be easy to rock a particle physics laboratory, but the band gave us sweat and tears and joy.

Naturally, I bought their album, Right Now Everything, and I’m happy to report that it’s great. The Congregation plays vintage-sounding soul-rock with sweet horn lines and a full-blooded rhythm section. But the big draw is vocalist Gina Bloom – she has a voice that can shake mountains. When it needs to be full of love, as on “You’ll Always Be Alright With Me,” it is, and when it needs to be overflowing with pain and anger, as on “You Always Told Me (Terrible Things),” it’ll put you through the wringer. I’m not sure how she sustains such full-throated, glorious singing over an entire record (or show), but she does it, and it’s a wonder to behold.

The Congregation takes its cues from old-school soul, and the songs are about love and leaving. The opening title track sets the tone, with Chuck Sansone’s deft electric piano, the band’s handclaps and Bloom’s room-filling voice. The drums kick up to double time, the horns drip honey over everything, Wayne rips out a solo, and the band drops some big band-style backing vocals, shouting the title phrase. It’s just a great little song, and this album is full of them. Check out the lovely piano piece “Darlin’,” or its flip side, the rollicking “High Class.” The arrangements are consistently crisp and dynamic, particularly the horn lines, and the off-kilter ending to the album-closing “I Will Forget You” will leave you wanting more.

Throughout Right Now Everything, the Congregation finds new ways to breathe life into old soul music. They feel to me like a band on the verge, and with the songwriting and musicianship on display, and especially the voice of Bloom front and center, they could be a household name. But that’s the future. Right now they’re just a damn good band, one I’m glad I finally got to check out. You can do the same right here.

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Speaking of new discoveries, here’s Typhoon. This 11-member band from Portland certainly lives up to their name – their fourth album, White Lighter, crashes over you in a torrent of sound.

This is the first Typhoon album I’ve heard, so perhaps they built up to this sound over a series of smaller, more timid records. But this one just launches itself at you, and dares you to move. This band writes tricky yet threadbare songs, and then fleshes them out with a non-stop parade of instruments, flickering in and out. Horns, strings, banjos, ukuleles, keys – it’s huger than huge, and yet, at times, quiet and placid. The album is restless, darting through sections and arrangements, picking them up like shiny objects and then dropping them back to the floor. Opening epic “Artificial Light” packs in a dozen smaller pieces into a cohesive 5:35 – it moves from indie rock to orchestral swells to mariachi to something approaching math-rock in 38 seconds, and then it really starts.

If that sounds confusing, like music that requires you to take notes, trust me that White Lighter is an enveloping experience from first note to last. The band dresses up even the slightest of songs, like folk ditty “Morton’s Fork,” in coats of many colors, and songs segue together – the transition from “The Lake” to “Dreams of Cannibalism” is particularly dramatic. The songs are all fairly simple indie rock, but it’s the arrangements that make this thing – if you don’t like what you’re hearing, wait a few moments and it will change.

White Lighter demands repeat listens, but rewards them. I feel somewhat embarrassed that this is the first time I’m hearing of Typhoon, but as the last strains of the gorgeous, string-laden “Post Script” fade out, I find myself determined to hear more.

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From White Lighter to White Lies.

I first heard this London band courtesy of Dr. Tony Shore, who evangelized about their debut album, To Lose My Life. Shore loves anything that reminds him of the ‘80s, and White Lies certainly fit the bill – their dramatic, synth-y rock recalls Duran Duran and other new wave bands of the era. For me, though, they’ve never quite flipped the switch. That is, until now – the third White Lies album, Big TV, is unquestionably their best.

It’s also their biggest, eschewing the dark minimalism of Joy Division for the lush expanses of Echo and the Bunnymen. It’s still pseudo-‘80s new wave, but it’s very good pseudo-‘80s new wave. Songs like “There Goes Our Love Again” pulse with life, and with bold melodies. Harry McVeigh has a voice that hearkens back to the new romantics, but he can make it soar, as he does on this song, rising above the oceans of keyboards and the buzzing guitars. The album remains consistent, sounding like something that could have come out in 1985.

To be clear, this remains pastiche, but for the first time, it’s convincing, thoroughly committed pastiche. “Mother Tongue” is massive and dynamic, McVeigh occasionally bringing Roland Orzabal to mind, while “Getting Even” is a burst of me-decade electro with a tremendous, catchy chorus. The band’s songwriting has improved measurably while their dedication to this musical form has deepened. You could file this right next to Crocodiles and Seven and the Ragged Tiger and barely notice the difference.

My biggest complaint with White Lies has always been that they aren’t delivering anything original. They’re still not, but Big TV is such a good, knowing imitation that it casts aside those concerns. For the first time, they sound like I imagine they’ve always wanted to, and that makes all the difference.

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And speaking of ‘80s-inspired dance bands, Franz Ferdinand is back.

It’s been four years since we’ve heard from Alex Kapranos and his merry men, and if you thought they were perhaps undergoing some intensive musical transformation, spinning a cocoon to emerge a new beast, well, go to the back of the class. Franz sound exactly as they always have – like Morrissey’s disco band, slinky and sexy and full of stomping attitude. But this time, they’ve honed their focus to a razor-fine point.

Franz’ fourth album, Right Thoughts Right Words Right Action, is a mere 10 songs in 35 minutes. But they’re the right songs, in the right order – the opening trilogy of “Right Action,” “Evil Eye” and “Love Illumination” is the sharpest one-two-three punch any band has delivered this year. The grooves are tight, the riffs memorable, and Kapranos brings his finest sneer. “Love Illumination” is a perfect Franz song – “We can love you if you need somebody to love you while you’re looking for somebody to love,” Kapranos snarls, while Gus Asphalt’s saxophone darts in and out.

Right Thoughts is a quick record, and it may fly by without calling attention to how well-made and detailed it is. You have to listen closely for Owen Pallet’s sweet strings on “Stand on the Horizon,” or the complex backing vocal arrangement on “Fresh Strawberries.” But that’s all right – there’s enough right up front here, like the bass and guitar attack on “Bullet,” to carry you from one end to the other. Franz has somehow managed to make a headphone album that sounds like a scrappy garage-rock stomper.

The band does slow things down a little on “The Universe Expanded” and the trippy “Brief Encounters,” but not enough to drag them to a halt. And the buzzing “Goodbye Lovers and Friends” finishes things off in fine style. Perhaps it’s that Franz Ferdinand has been absent for so long, but Right Thoughts Right Words Right Action sounds fresh and vital, without much having changed. It’s terrific, and proof – if you needed it – that Franz is no trendy fly-by-night. Yeah, they helped create the dance-band craze of the 2000s, but they outlived it, and here they still are, kicking ass.

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And finally, someone who does the exact opposite of kicking ass.

Many musicians claim to be unique. Brooklyn’s Julianna Barwick actually is – there is no one like her. Over four EPs and one dazzling full-length, Barwick has refined her one-woman-choir sound, finding new ways to loop and overdub her ethereal voice into heavenly clouds of gossamer. I have often described her work as what Enya would sound like if Enya were awesome, but that doesn’t even remotely do her unbelievably, inhumanly beautiful music justice.

Barwick’s second full-length, Nepenthe, somehow takes her sound and makes it exponentially more gorgeous. For the first time, she didn’t work alone – the album was produced by Alex Somers, of Jonsi and Alex, and includes contributions from members of Icelandic bands Amiina and Mum. The focus is still Barwick’s voice, layered and looped and unfolded into lovely new shapes, but behind that voice now sits pianos and strings and subtle guitars. The songs are still ambient wisps, falling like soft sheets over you, but they’ve taken on new dimensions.

I could go on about how soul-stirring a song like “The Harbinger” is, or how startling (in a good way) it is to hear Barwick sing distinct lyrics on “One Half,” or how well the Icelandic teen girl choir fits in with the fabulous “Pyrrhic,” or how final track “Waving To You” turns Amiina’s strings into the loneliest sound in the world. But this is music you have to hear, music you have to experience. I’m not going to be able to sum it up – it’s too vast, too intimate, too heart-stoppingly wonderful. You need to hear it. Like the very best music, it speaks for itself.

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Next week, the flood. Expect reviews of BT and NIN, and maybe more. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am, and Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Oh, John Mayer. I wish I knew how to quit you.

There are few artists who force me to argue with myself the way Mayer does. This phenomenon goes all the way back to his first big single, “No Such Thing,” which I alternately admired for its naïve chutzpah and derided for… well, the same thing. Since then, every album has found me in the same conundrum – I like his work, and yet I know all the reasons I shouldn’t.

Start with the fact that Mayer is a prodigiously talented guitar player, and yet rarely uses that talent in the studio. Ever since “Daughters” soft-rocked the world, Mayer has emphasized his softer side, and that tends to be cloying and saccharine more often than not. Anyone who heard Try, his lone album with the John Mayer Trio, knows that this guy can play a mean blues lick and shred with the best of them. But he chooses not to – we get record after record filled with the likes of “Half of My Heart.” And I find myself constantly defending him against his own work.

Lately, he’s decided to be Mr. Sensitive Ponytail Man full time. On last year’s surprising Born and Raised, that shift worked for him – it was actually his first great record, thoroughly eschewing the energy of his live shows for a quiet, more reflective balm. It was a canny move, given his sleazy public image, but the album showed remarkable growth as an artist. I’m all for maturity, particularly if the results are honest and earned. Born and Raised sure sounded that way to me.

But now, just more than a year later, Mayer is back with his sixth album, Paradise Valley. And while I still like this more than I feel like I should, the whole thing sounds a lot more calculated this time out. Paradise is another quiet little record, 40 minutes of pleasant ditties and acoustic whispers, but like the front cover photograph, with its hat and blanket and dog and endless field, it feels a little forced. This should come off like a deepening, like another step down a path. Instead it feels like an attempt to replicate Born and Raised, with the edges sanded off.

Mayer again worked with legendary producer Don Was, and he gives this record a down-home sheen. Mayer’s guitar playing is typically swell, even on these restrained tunes, and he remains on just the right side of the Eric Clapton lite-FM divide. The solo on “Waitin’ on the Day,” for example, is probably a little loopier than the one Clapton would have laid down. (His version of JJ Cale’s “Call Me the Breeze,” however, may as well be ol’ Slowhand, so similar is the sound.) His voice is in fine shape, particularly considering his recent surgeries, and the whole record is sweet and professional.

Like a lot of Mayer’s work, though, it’s just a little too slick. “Paper Doll” lopes along on a clean guitar figure and some delicate playing reminiscent of Jerry Garcia, and while it’s all pleasant, it never comes alive. Current flame Katy Perry joins Mayer on “Who You Love,” a low-key breeze of a song about, well, loving who you love. (Lyrics were never Mayer’s strong suit.) And it’s fine – it’s pretty, and Mayer gets a few tasteful guitar licks in, and Perry doesn’t embarrass herself. The horn section is so subtle it’s almost inaudible. The whole thing works, but it doesn’t do much, and it’s forgettable. I can’t help liking it while it’s playing, though.

The second half gets more interesting, starting with the record’s best song, “I Will Be Found (Lost at Sea).” Built around a lightly-played piano, the song takes some interesting melodic detours, and Mayer even sells the line “I’m a little birdie in a big ol’ tree.” It even works up a head of steam, relatively speaking. Frank Ocean provides a puzzling interlude – a track that Mayer had nothing whatsoever to do with – and then the record ends with three simple, pretty songs, starting with the old-school country ditty “You’re No One ‘Til Someone Lets You Down.” The mood stays breezy right through to the end, the rustic “On the Way Home.”

There isn’t much here I don’t like, even though my more critical side is shouting at me the entire time. I acknowledge that “Dear Marie,” a trademark Mayer song that purports to be about someone else but is really about him, is kind of dickish – it’s about him remembering a childhood friend, and feeling bad about his own success when he sees she has a family. But I can’t help but smile when the climax arrives, the drums (moderately) kick up, the whoa-ohs start, and Mayer chimes in with his guitar. It’s calculated, but it works.

If there were an album to make me give up on John Mayer, I think Paradise Valley would be it. It’s the farthest he’s traveled from the fiery blues-rock I know he can deliver, and unlike last year’s sterling effort, this one feels less honest, more contrived, more like the sensitive kid who plays guitar to get chicks. And yet, here I am, listening again and still enjoying what I’m hearing. I don’t know what to tell you. I just don’t know how to quit him.

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Speaking of Mr. Sensitive Ponytail Man, here’s a new record from Travis.

As any longtime listener knows, there are actually two Scottish bands named Travis, both made up of the same four members. One of those bands is a loud Britpop act, with crashing guitars and a slightly punky attitude. The other is a dreamy acoustic act with soppy melodies and an overall “nice” feeling to it. One version of Travis is four nice guys who will bring you flowers. The other version is four lads who will stomp your flower garden for fun.

If you want to know which Travis you’re dealing with, just check the front cover. If the four members of the band are pictured from far away, and the band’s logo is angular, with the A and the V sloping into one another, you’re dealing with dreamy milquetoast Travis. And that’s what you’ll get on their seventh album, Where You Stand, their first in five years.

I used to like dreamy milquetoast Travis. Their breakthrough album The Man Who is still a gem, and The Invisible Band has its moments. But I honestly don’t remember anything about 2007’s The Boy With No Name, and this new one is just as forgettable. The sound is typical of this version of Travis, all strummy acoustics and chiming clean guitars, Fran Healy’s voice plaintive and pleading. The songs this time, though, are remarkably boring. You have to get to track seven, “A Different Room,” before you hear anything that stirs and soars like Travis used to.

Most of these tunes just glide right by without leaving any mark at all. “Reminder” starts with a whistle, but quickly devolves into a repetitive snore. The title track is the best part of the early going, with its ascending piano and guitar lines and its falsetto chorus, but it never lifts off, never does anything interesting. “Another Guy” is the nadir, a simplistic dirge that pivots on these lyrics: “I saw you with another guy, you can cry all you like but it won’t change a thing.” Charming. “New Shoes” is a pitiful stab at Gorillaz-style electro. Only “On My Wall” sports a pulse, but its jangly beat is overshadowed by the waves of boredom that surround it.

Where You Stand is a real shame. I enjoyed Healy’s solo album more than this, and I definitely prefer the more raucous Travis that made Ode to J Smith five years ago. I sincerely hope that Travis comes back soon, and wakes up this Travis.

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Next week, loads of things. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am, and Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

If you follow music industry news, you’ve no doubt seen this story. Album sales, as recorded by SoundScan in record stores and retail outlets all over the country, have hit an all-time low. The week of July 26 saw the lowest weekly sales figures – 4.68 million – of the SoundScan era. (That’s since 1991, for those not keeping track.)

And of course, this news has precipitated a flurry of “What Does This Mean??” commentary and think-pieces. The consensus is that a perfect storm of illegal downloads, legal streaming, lousy new releases and dwindling catalog items has led to these historic lows. The warmer months are a notoriously crappy time for new music, and when the song of the summer is Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” you know it’s a particularly down year. And most of the big catalog names have already repackaged their material for the CD and vinyl audience.

That has all certainly contributed. But this news got me thinking about SoundScan, and how it may not be the right tool for our emerging musical age. I buy a lot of records in the store (Kiss the Sky in Batavia, Illinois, the best record store on earth), but I think I buy an equal amount directly from the bands themselves. Downloads, both legal and illegal, have turned the music world upside down. But the Internet has even revolutionized the way physical products make their way from the musicians to their fans.

We’ve talked about Kickstarter at length here, and we’re going to talk about it again, but that’s not the only game in town. Virtually every independent artist you can think of has a functioning webstore, and many of them have taken to Bandcamp and Noisetrade to sell their wares. The pre-order model spearheaded by Marillion (check out Mark Kelly’s TED talk about it here.) is now a popular method of bringing the fans in early. I just reviewed Over the Rhine’s new album, funded this way, and next month, Scottish legend Fish will release his new crowd-funded opus.

This is the new way forward, and it bypasses record stores and SoundScan entirely. (Many of these albums do find their way to stores, but usually after the fans have had them for some time.) The old methods of determining sales aren’t equipped to keep up with this, and more and more bands are turning to the ‘net and working directly with their fans to fund and distribute new albums. Hell, I have two of them to talk about this week, and I know of several more on the way this year. Both of this week’s bands used Kickstarter to pay for their long-awaited returns to the music scene.

First up is the Polyphonic Spree, floating back into our hearts after a six-year absence. I can understand Tim DeLaughter’s use of Kickstarter – it can’t be easy or inexpensive to get all 23 members of this band into the studio. The Spree remains one of the most expansive acts in the world, dressing up DeLaughter’s hippie-joy anthems in strings, horns and choirs. They’re a theatrical outfit, wearing matching robes onstage and fully committing to the orchestral sweep of their sound. The band’s third album, 2007’s darker The Fragile Army, streamlined things a little, and became their least successful effort.

So I wonder why DeLaughter continued in that direction for their fan-funded fourth, Yes, It’s True. This record returns to the anthemic bliss of earlier efforts, but keeps song lengths short – mainly between three and five minutes. While the songs are fine, and DeLaughter sounds energized, the scope of the band is overlooked here in favor of sharper focus. Ordinarily I’d praise that kind of buckling down, but in the Spree’s case, I miss the sprawl. I miss the extended introductions, the orchestral interludes, the sense of dynamics.

Instead, what we have here are simpler, more direct pop songs. The album is still fantastically detailed, much of the texture coming from trumpets, trombones, violins and cellos. Opener “You Don’t Know Me” is as fine a Polyphonic Spree single as there has ever been, surging to life on an insistent beat and a chugging guitar-and-piano rhythm. The choir repeats the title phrase while the trumpets add fist-pumping accents. It runs out of ideas about two minutes in, but it’s still a good tune.

The album continues in this vein, DeLaughter shouting out the joyous “Hold Yourself Up” and doing his best Wayne Coyne on the lovely “Carefully Try.” These are good songs, and I’m impressed at the way DeLaughter and his co-producers keep layering in orchestral sounds while not breaking the bounds of his four-minute tunes. (The radio voice at the end of the latter song is the only false note.) There’s nothing really wrong with this, but I think the streamlined approach robs the album of the impact prior Spree releases packed. Even the final song, the remarkable slow-crawl piano piece “Battlefield,” promises 7:27, but delivers a restrained 3:52, with the rest devoted to organ noise.

Yes, It’s True grows on you the more you listen – it feels designed to, as layers of instrumentation make themselves heard over time. It would be wrong to say I’m disappointed with this effort. But when the Spree began more than 11 years ago, using full orchestration to augment anthemic pop tunes like this was a new thing. Now it’s pretty commonplace, and the Spree needs to stand out, and the way they used to do that was by stretching out, giving the full breadth of their wingspan room to move. I found that I wanted more of that, more of a sense of ambition and freedom. And what does fan-funding buy you if not that?

It’s been six years since we’ve heard from the Spree, but a full 16 years since the last Toad the Wet Sprocket album. In that time, frontman Glen Phillips has carved out a diverse solo career, from the full-bloom pop of Winter Pays for Summer to the more stripped-down Mr. Lemons and The Coyote Sessions, to his collaborations with Nickel Creek. But there’s something magical about his band, and Phillips seems to know it. Toad reunited a few years ago, re-recording older tunes for a collection called All You Want, and then asking fans to help them record their comeback, New Constellation.

And man, this one was worth the wait. Toad has never been as quirky as their name, which they took from a Monty Python sketch. They have always trafficked in well-written, solid guitar-pop music, the kind that allowed them to ride the college-rock wave in the 1990s. Phillips is an underrated songwriter, and even Toad’s hits are splendid little tunes. Their deep cuts were usually leagues above those of their contemporaries, to the point where the band’s rarities collection, In Light Syrup, is a better record than most of their peers managed on their main releases.

If you ever liked them, you’re going to like New Constellation. It’s a distillation of everything the band does well, and from its first notes, it’s a sterling reminder of how good Phillips is when he’s with these guys. Phillips certainly dominates the proceedings – this could be a particularly good solo record – but the ringing guitars of Todd Nichols are unmistakable, and the rhythm section of Dean Dinning and Randy Guss plays these new songs like old friends.

And again, while I love the ones that could be hits – the rousing title track, the loping “California Wasted,” the slightly off-kilter “Get What You Want” – it’s the deep cuts that thrill me, and that show just how good this band is. “The Moment” feels like riding through a tunnel at night, its minor-key atmosphere enveloping a galloping rhythm. “Of everything you taught me, here’s the one I learned the best, there is nothing but the moment, don’t you waste it on regret,” Phillips sings, before launching into an unexpected chorus. “This is the price of our mistake, and I’m not sorry…”

“Golden Age” may be the best, most mature song Phillips has ever written. It begins with a delicate acoustic guitar pattern, then subtly builds. The final minutes shift into another orbit entirely – “Walls and barricades surround our golden age, we will return someday,” Phillips sings, over a martial drum beat and some gorgeous guitar chimes. I’m a big fan of the hard-won smile of “Life is Beautiful,” and the knotty melodies of “The Eye.” But I love the closer, “Enough.” Building on the bare-bones version on Phillips’ Coyote Sessions, this six-minute slow burn finds him singing like he never has – raw and exposed, straining his voice, reaching for the notes on the refrain: “Tell me when I’ve had enough!”

There’s plenty here for Toad the Wet Sprocket fans to get excited about, and plenty for people who have never explored this band. Even the bonus tracks are great, including a version of “Finally Fading” that shows off just what the three other members bring to Phillips’ songs. New Constellation is a textbook case of trust paying off – the band asked for $50,000 on Kickstarter, and the fans gave them $264,000, believing that a band that had not recorded new stuff in 16 years would deliver the goods. And they did. It’s proof this new model works, proof that beyond the SoundScan numbers, great music is happening, in the communion between bands and the people who love them. It’s a new constellation, and we can write our names.

Next week, the wuss rock revolution with John Mayer and Travis. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am, and Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’ve been a Doctor Who fan since I was six years old. I’m 39 now, but I’ll tell you, the thrill of regeneration has never faded.

For those of you who are not fans (and, happily, that number keeps on shrinking), the central premise of Doctor Who is one of rebirth. The concept of regeneration is a novel one – when the Doctor is mortally injured, his body completely renews itself, changing its entire appearance. That means that not only do creative teams keep cycling in and out of the show, as you’d expect for a 50-year-old institution, but the lead actor does as well. Couple that with a long-standing tradition of temporary traveling companions, and you have a show that can look and feel completely different in the space of two or three years.

As you can imagine, this is both exciting and scary. Doctor Who fans live in a perpetual state of suspense, wondering how a new Doctor will change the show. When Matt Smith arrived in the spring of 2010, all fresh-faced and quirky, he was a massive question mark. Very few had heard of him, and no one knew quite what he was going to do with the role. (His age was also a concern – at the time he was cast, he was 26, the youngest actor ever to play the part.) Four years on, I’m happy to say that Smith turned in one of my favorite portrayals, and certainly my favorite since the years of Tom Baker and Peter Davison.

Now Smith is moving on, and the Doctor will regenerate again. Eleven actors have played the role on television, and you would think by now the roller-coaster feeling when a new Doctor is announced would fade over time. You’d be wrong. The identity of the 12th Doctor was revealed on a live television special last week, and it was all I could think about for days. Here’s the guy who will be setting the tone for a show that has grown with me since my earliest memories. Will this be the one I end up hating? Or will this be my new favorite Doctor, taking the show to new heights?

We still don’t know that, but I feel confident the next few years are in very safe hands indeed. Scottish actor Peter Capaldi will step into the Tardis this Christmas, and man, that’s inspired casting. Capaldi is an intense actor, best known for his sweary-shouty role as Malcolm Tucker on The Thick of It (and in its spinoff movie, In the Loop). Like Colin Baker before him, he’s appeared on Doctor Who before, in “The Fires of Pompeii” (along with Karen “Amy Pond” Gillan). More notably, though, in terms of his deep dark range, Capaldi played bureaucrat John Frobisher in the Torchwood story Children of Earth. And he was remarkable.

I expect Capaldi will bring a darkness and a gravitas to the role, and I’m looking forward to that. Smith has been wonderful, but he often played the 1000-year-old Time Lord as an excitable kid, and I expect those days are over. I also would not be surprised to see an end to quippy Tardis romance, which would be fine with me. I adore River Song, and the Doctor’s relationship with her, but I’ll be glad to see a more dangerous and less trustworthy Doctor, one who keeps his companions at arm’s length. I have no idea if this is how Capaldi will play the part – I’m just guessing, based on his track record.

And God bless America, because once again the Doctor’s age is an issue. Capaldi is 55, making him the second-oldest actor to step into the part. (William Hartnell was also 55, but was older by three months.) After three increasingly younger actors, we’ve gone older again, and I think it’s about time. But Capaldi’s age has caused a rift among younger viewers (mainly those who started with Christopher Eccleston or David Tennant), and I hope the BBC is prepared to lose some of its stateside audience. Casting Capaldi was a terrific move for the long-term health of the show, but there are bound to be some short-term pains along the way.

(I’ve even heard some suggest that the pace of the show will need to slow down, since the “old guy” won’t be able to keep up with the action. I mean, wow. First, 55 is still pretty young, and second, Capaldi is in tip-top shape. It’s so not a concern. I hope they start his first episode with an outrageous amount of running, just to show people that he can handle it just fine.)

By Christmas, we should know what Capaldi will look like as the Doctor, and next year, we’ll get to see how he plays the part. This bit never gets less exciting – saying goodbye to a familiar face and welcoming a new one, and with it, a renewal of this crazy, silly, wonderful little show I love. As the song from Delta and the Bannermen says, here’s to the future.

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Life is just different for a duo act.

While any band is like a family, duo acts are like a marriage. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel may have gone on to marry other people, but from 1957 to 1970, they were married to each other, and that relationship still hangs over them. Like any marriage, it had its good periods and bad ones, and like many of them, it ended in divorce. Occasionally they’ll still see each other at parties, and they’ll rekindle what they had, but once the flame is doused, it’s gone, gone, gone.

It’s even worse for duo acts made up of one man and one woman. I can’t imagine how sick Jack and Meg White were of telling people they were not actually married. People will assume intimacy no matter what the artists themselves say. Being in a band is just that intense of a relationship to begin with. So even though Joy Williams and John Paul White are both married to other people, the Civil Wars feels like a marriage. And now that the two have acrimoniously split, and reportedly are not speaking, it certainly feels like a divorce.

The whole thing even plays like a marriage. The two songwriters met at a writing camp in Nashville in 2008, and discovered the chemistry between them. They began performing together, then writing together, finally consummating things with their debut full-length Barton Hollow in 2011. That album was a fine, folksy platter, if a bit slight, and the voices of Williams and White blended beautifully. Things seemed to be going well.

And then, in November of last year, they weren’t. The Civil Wars canceled a run of tour dates and entered an indefinite hiatus, citing “irreconcilable differences of ambition.” They reconvened long enough to record a second album, but then evidently signed the papers and went their separate ways. So now we have this strange sophomore effort, a self-titled document of a duo about to break apart. The cover is a stark black-and-white photo of ominous clouds rolling in. It’s a divorce album, no doubt about it, and it’s impossible to think of it any other way.

Williams and White seem to know this. The songs about leaving and regret are all up front, starting with the melancholy first single, “The One That Got Away.” The amps crank up more than they ever have here, as Williams laments, “I wish I’d never seen your face, I wish you were the one that got away.” If you’re parsing the lyrics for references to the breakup, you can’t get more on-the-nose than that. White sticks with the electric guitar for the bluesy “I Had Me a Girl,” a tale of two people slipping through each other’s hands “like cigarette smoke.”

And “Same Old Same Old” may be the most self-referential song here. “Do I love you, oh I do, and I’m going to till I’m gone, but if you think that I can stay in this same old same old, well, I don’t.” If you’re a fan of this band, the song is heartbreaking, a knife slipped in slowly. The references keep on coming, if you’re looking for them: “Dust to Dust” finds the pair asking each other to take down the walls, and “Eavesdrop” finds Williams pleading “don’t say that it’s over” and “for all that we’ve got, don’t let go.”

As you may have gathered, this is a sad, mournful album. Given that, it’s more diverse than you might expect, which is at least partially down to producer Charlie Peacock. The duo experiments with a drum loop on “Dust to Dust,” sings in French on “Sacred Heart,” and covers both Etta James (her “Tell Mama” version of Clarence Carter’s “Tell Daddy”) and the Smashing Pumpkins (“Disarm”). The record flails somewhat in its second half, leading me to question how complete it was before the breakup, but it’s a nice artistic step up from Barton Hollow.

Which makes it even sadder that it will likely be the last. White and Williams were not together long enough to truly explore the potential on both of their albums, and given how well their voices and styles merge, that’s a shame. They got louder and darker on The Civil Wars – check out the spectral “Devil’s Backbone,” about being in love with a wicked man – and found new ways to connect, even as they were shattering.

The final track, a back porch demo called “D’Arline,” is specifically addressed to the title character, but contains more than enough harsh and beautiful sentiment to make it their final statement to each other. “Can’t live with you or without,” Williams sings. “I could get over you, but please don’t ask me to.” “You’ll always be the only one, even when you’re not.” “You always said you want me to be happy, but happiness was having you here with me.” It couldn’t be more perfect. The marriage didn’t work, the potential will remain unrealized. But the Civil Wars have left us with two good-to-great records, and though they’ve gone their separate ways, the love still lingers, and it’s sweet.

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Of course, things are considerably different if the duo act is, in fact, married, as Karin Bergquist and Linford Detwiler of Over the Rhine are.

The Ohio natives have been making music together since 1988, and have been married since 1996. They’re a shining example of how to maintain both a personal and musical relationship over decades, and they’re always open and honest about it. In 2004, while touring for Ohio, their grandest-sounding album, the pair took the same tactic as the Civil Wars – they canceled their tour, citing the strain on their marriage. And then they retrenched, and created the lovely and intimate Drunkard’s Prayer the next year.

Given that bump in the road, it’s such a joy to hear Over the Rhine’s latest, a two-CD affair called Meet Me at the Edge of the World. Recent OtR albums have been searching and restless, flirting with jazz and country, seeking a place to land. On Meet Me, they find it – this is the most simple, contented, joyous record they’ve made. Composed at (and based around) the pre-Civil War farm they have called home for years, the album is a celebration of the tiny moments that make up the best parts of our lives. It’s about being together for a long time, and finding a beautiful peace within that comfort.

Meet Me is broken up into two 35-minute pieces, each with their own title. Sacred Ground is the more lush of the two, a full band effort featuring drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Jennifer Condos and the great Eric Heywood on pedal steel. Blue Jean Sky focuses more on Bergquist and Detwiler, and has a more bare-bones, tire-swing-in-the-backyard kind of sound. They worked with producer Joe Henry again, and he’s proven to be a perfect match, bringing out the rustic intimacy of the band even when layering strings on their tunes.

Longtime fans will notice right away that Detwiler rarely touches his trademark piano on this album. Both discs are built around acoustic guitar, and of course Bergquist’s remarkable, phenomenal, why-isn’t-she-more-famous voice. The songs are often more traditional – “Called Home” is a low-key folk tune, “I’d Want You” a back-porch ballad, and “Gonna Let My Soul Catch My Body” a straight-up blues. But as the first disc winds on, the songs get deeper. “All Of It Was Music” is tremendous, its repetitive melody shining the spotlight on some gorgeous, nostalgic lyrics: “The newness of uncovered skin, your messy hair, your goofy grin, your shattered places deep within, all of it was music…”

Aimee Mann adds her voice to the delightful “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down,” more of a gentle encouragement than a fight song. Like much of this album, it’s about letting the little annoyances go and basking in the beauty all around us. It also sports the second-prettiest “ooh-ooh” in the band’s catalog. The prettiest lies in this album’s climax, the haunting “Wait.” Heywood sends this one into the stratosphere with his unearthly pedal steel lines, but its heart is a poetic lyric about holding on to the one you love: “Wait for the sound of the waterdog, to call up the ghosts through the cracks in my past, make the hair raise on my skin, tonight we’ll settle in, into a promise that I’ve held fast…” (And then “oooh.” You’ll see what I mean when you hear it.)

Paradoxically, while the first disc contains the best songs, the second disc is the better album. Blue Jean Sky is like a gentle stream nudging you on, song by lovely song. “All Over Ohio” is a true duet, Detwiler and Bergquist sharing verses. Detwiler sings more on this album than he ever has, and he gets the song’s finest moment, a rebuke of Christians who spread hate: “If you preach a subtle hatred, the Bible as your alibi, goddamn you right here in Ohio.” Most of the song, however, is about longing for love, and Bergquist, restrained through most of disc one, lets loose here.

As you listen to this disc, you can easily imagine Bergquist and Detwiler hanging out on their porch, singing these breezy, hard-won songs of peace. “Earthbound Love Song” finds the two harmonizing while musing about “a love like Johnny and June,” and while there is pain in their cover of The Band’s great “It Makes No Difference,” it’s washed away by the gorgeous “Blue Jean Sky,” on which Bergquist sings, “Love makes me wanna skin my knees, throw my heart upon your healing,” before asking for “a little kick-ass beauty.”

Bergquist blueses it up again on “Baby If This is Nowhere,” an ode to their Nowhere Farm, but is soon back to acoustic loveliness on “Wildflower Bouquet,” a song about gently accepting death. “I’ll be singing loud and laughing long, a blaze of glory and an untold song, so there’s no need for tears my friend…” After a brief yet lovely piano interlude, the pair slips into the finale, a gentle, moving tune called “Our Favorite Time of Light.” This one’s about catching the sunset at just the right time over the farm, and reveling in comfortable love, and it’s so pretty I can’t even do it justice. “When the day is bending low and rolling fields begin to glow, feels like we traveled all this way just so I could hear you say it’s our favorite time of light…”

These songs leave me with the warmest feeling. That’s the best way I can explain it. I listen to this album, and I feel full of love. It’s remarkable to hear these two people feeling this contented, this at peace, and catching it in perfect little songs. And that feeling radiates off this terrific record. It was funded by love – fans pre-ordered almost a year in advance – and it pays that love forward with every play. Not only is Meet Me at the Edge of the World one of Over the Rhine’s best albums, it’s one of 2013’s as well. But more importantly, it’s a portrait of a musical and personal relationship that has stood the test of time, and found a magical, wonderful place.

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Wow, this was a long one. I’ll try to keep it shorter next week when I talk about Toad the Wet Sprocket and the Polyphonic Spree. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.