I have a complicated relationship with Steve Taylor’s work, but there aren’t many artists I would wait 20 years for, and Taylor is one.

This week, Taylor and his new band, a supergroup called The Perfect Foil, released Goliath. It’s his first album of new music since 1994, after two decades in the wilderness. (He made some movies, one of which – Blue Like Jazz – was actually pretty good.) Goliath is the very definition of worth the wait, but before I can truly review it, I feel like I need to explore both a) why my relationship with Taylor’s music is complex, and b) just exactly why he’s one of the artists I would wait half my life for.

So who is this Steve Taylor guy? Well, when he started out, he was the first one to bring the fine art of satire to the Nashville Christian music scene. I was 12 when I first heard Taylor’s 1985 album On the Fritz, and I gravitated to the funnier songs – “Lifeboat,” which effectively dramatized our culture’s obsession with looks and wealth by having a bunch of school kids murder their teacher, and “Drive, He Said,” an encounter with the devil on a dusty highway. But On the Fritz is a much deeper record than that, one that takes on Christian hypocrisy with a sharp bite. I didn’t fully understand it when I first encountered it, but I’ve grown to love it over time.

I think what I responded to most was its anger. Taylor was (and still is) a furious writer, despite being one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet. And here’s where that complex relationship comes in, because his earliest work – the 1983 EP I Want to Be a Clone and the 1984 album Meltdown – wield that anger the same way pundits on Fox News do. Sometimes his targets are deserving, as in “We Don’t Need No Colour Code,” a snarling swipe at Bob Jones University’s race-based admissions policy. But songs like “Whatever Happened to Sin” strut with a moral absolutism (and a whiff of homophobia) that I can’t get behind. Taylor does get deeper – “Over My Dead Body” still knocks me out, as does “Hero,” proof that he wasn’t just some funnyman pointing fingers. But Meltdown is a young man’s record, even beyond its synth-y datedness, and I haven’t listened to it in a long time.

But when I was 13, I was midway through my hardcore Jesus phase, and the black-and-white world of Meltdown and (to a lesser extent) On the Fritz suited me just fine. Remarkably, though, as my perspective shifted and deepened, so to did Taylor’s. In 1987, he released one of my favorite records, full stop. It’s called I Predict 1990, and it’s the darkest, most biting piece of work I’ve ever heard from the Christian industry. It begins with a song from the point of view of an insane man who bombs abortion clinics, and goes on to spin tales of greed, manipulation and hopelessness. (One song is actually called “Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel a Lot Better.”) It culminates with “Harder to Believe Than Not To,” a song about not throwing away faith in the face of a terrifying, cold world, and at the end of this record, that song is nothing short of beautiful.

Naturally, none of this went down well with the Bible-bangers. The cover art for I Predict 1990, which to some resembled a tarot card, also drew controversy, and Taylor took to calling up store owners to explain his intentions. What was at the time one of the most honest and difficult records to ever grace a Family Christian Bookstore was roundly banned. This led to Taylor quitting church (metaphorically speaking) around the same time that I did. When we heard from him again, he was fronting a band called Chagall Guevara, which Rolling Stone favorably compared to the Clash, and issuing their self-titled debut on MCA Records.

Chagall Guevara is one of those records every fan of rock music should hear. It’s loud, brash and brilliant, full of hooks and blood-red claws. It broke cleanly and completely from Taylor’s ‘80s-new-wave past, infusing his sound with a raw rock feel. It outed him as an incredible frontman, kinetic and explosive, and the mighty band he fronted finally afforded Taylor’s angry, powerful lyrics the force they deserved. That so few people heard Chagall Guevara, and that the band broke up after only that one record, is one of the biggest musical injustices of the 1990s. That Taylor only managed one more solo record – 1994’s amazing Squint – before taking his leave of music completely is another.

For most of the world, Taylor’s lasting legacy is “Kiss Me,” a song he produced and released for Sixpence None the Richer in 1997. But for me, it’s three immortal albums between 1987 and 1994, albums which changed my outlook on a lot of important things. I know so few artists who can treat mockery like an art form (“Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel a Lot Better,” “Jung and the Restless,” “Easy Listening”) and then sucker-punch me with emotion (“Harder to Believe Than Not To,” “Candy Guru”) the way he can. If I’ve heard a love-in-hard-times anthem better than “If It All Comes True,” I can’t think of it. And if any spiritually minded artist has written a mea culpa as wonderful as “Jesus Is for Losers,” I also can’t think of it.

I’ve gotten used to thinking of Taylor’s brief discography as a moment sealed in amber, but it’s an important one for me, one I have returned to again and again as I’ve grown up and apart from many of the things I once believed. Taylor’s thoughtful, vicious, deeply spiritual work is one of the things I’ve kept from that time, and not a year goes by when I don’t revisit it. Steve Taylor has been important to me for nearly 30 years, even if he’s been silent for the last 20 of them.

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So that’s why it was worth waiting two decades for Goliath. Now, is Goliath worth waiting two decades for?

For me, it’s an unequivocal yes. Taylor assembled an incredible band for this outing, including guitarist Jimmy Abegg, bassist/horn player John Mark Painter and drummer Peter Furler, all men with a strong musical legacy. He funded it through Kickstarter, asking for $40,000 and raising $121,197. It was an incredible show of support from his longtime fans, and he used some of the extra money to mount a pre-album tour, playing songs both new and old with this kickass ensemble. I saw his show at AudioFeed in July, and it knocked me out.

So expectations have been pretty high, and I think Goliath meets them. This is the leanest, most focused record of Taylor’s career – it’s 10 sharp, fantastic rock songs and one expansive epic finale. The smartest thing Taylor and company have done with Goliath is to treat it like a debut album, like an introduction aimed at securing a new audience. Goliath is designed to be your first exposure to Steve Taylor, a brief yet powerful ride through the thoughtful rage that has always defined him. There are no speed bumps here – the record explodes like a cannon in its first minute and doesn’t stop pulling you through it for the next 39.

Much of that is down to the band, the most accomplished and savage one Taylor has put together since Chagall Guevara. Opener “Only a Ride” shows them off at their rawest, Furler’s pounding drums riding a simple powerhouse riff by Painter and Abegg. Taylor is 56 years old, but he sounds half his age, screaming out the chorus: “It’s only a ride, why am I bleeding?” In two minutes and 23 seconds, the song just clobbers you, and then gets out of the way. The same holds true for most of Goliath, actually – you have to get to track 10 before you find one that breaks the four-minute mark.

It makes sense to discuss the record in two parts – the 10 songs that fire off, one after another, from the start, and then the epic at the end. The meat of Goliath burns by at a frenetic pace – you’ll be half done with the record before you know it, and that’s down to the songs. They’re remarkably sharp things, with not an ounce of fat on them, and they’re deceptively, immaculately produced. Taylor earns his reputation as a biting, thoughtful lyricist throughout. “Double Negative,” one of the album’s best, glides in on a 7/4 beat while Taylor steps into the shoes of an eternal pessimist. “Bells are ringing in the town of the terminal heartache, bells are ringing, is it Easter or the start of an earthquake?”

The title track is an anthem for the underdog (“You’ve been on a roll, pushing us around, here’s your high five, now you’re going down”) set to a horn-driven march. “Moonshot,” which borrows from the Pixies’ strut, sounds like Taylor psyching himself up to make this record after two decades in the wilderness: “May the planets align for you, hold steady and taut, if you’re face down in desperation know that everybody gets one moonshot.” “Rubberneck” is the album’s hardest rocker, all about our social media world. Taylor even rhymes “take an Instagram, ah” with “this is someone’s grandma” while taking us to task for thinking “we have a right to know every ugly detail.”

“The Sympathy Vote” takes things political over a Black Keys-worthy bit of blues-rock, Taylor announcing in a carnival barker voice that there are only three certainties: death, taxes and professional jealousy. The smooth “Standing in Line” details a low point in a long-lasting relationship with surprising directness: “I’ve been standing in line so long, I’ve been wondering what went wrong, I’ve been trying to understand, I’m not gonna leave…” The arrangement on this song is wonderful, Abegg’s clean guitars shimmying all over a danceable beat from Furler and Painter.

The raw rock returns with “In Layers,” another highlight. It’s a cynical piece about the state of things – “If it’s naivety it looks best on the young, give it time and you’ll be comfortably dumb” – but it turns to hard-won hope by the end: “Throw up your hands and hell keeps yawning, open your eyes there’s a new world dawning, sun burns fog, burns all naysayers, love, like a child, comes wrapped in layers…” “Happy Go Lazy” hearkens back to the ‘90s with its loping beat and whistled refrain, the lyrics offering a gentle smack to the shiftless: “No, I’m not listening, your friends are correct, I got zero ambition and I want your respect.” That leads nicely into “A Life Preserved,” a song of gratitude that rises on a grand melody and Furler’s terrific drum work. Taylor sounds phenomenal on this song, sinking his teeth into the tune, and truly letting loose right at the end.

And it probably took you longer to read my song-by-song description of those 10 tracks than it would to listen to them. In 33 minutes, Taylor and his band burn through one of the most consistent sets of material I’ve heard this year. Had those 10 songs come on a disc by themselves, they would have been one of the finest pure rock records of 2014. But they didn’t. The final track on Goliath is the most ambitious, and the least congruous. “Comedian” is six and a half minutes of ever-building power, supporting one of Taylor’s most oblique and fascinating lyrics. The song is like a word game, and parsing its meaning takes many, many listens. (I’m not quite there.) While the music is as simple as a lot of things the National has done, the force of the lyrics makes this one of Taylor’s best songs.

“Comedian” is at least partially about how the industry sees him, but it’s also about what God finds funny: “Man makes plans, God laughs.” He begins thusly: “The saints came marching in this morning and they marched back out the door, wholly offended, no pun intended…” Thus begins a series of tricky turns of phrase, many ending with “no pun intended,” leading to this: “The King and I began a feud that time will not erase until he wipes that omniscient smile off his face.” There are so many ways to take that line, but the anger of it carries into the next bit: “Didn’t I thank you from the dais, didn’t I do you good? Didn’t I take up all your crosses that were made of balsa wood? I’ve kept my demons pent up so long the devil himself lost track, I’ve since repented, no pun intended…” I’ve come to think of that as the only instance in which, while the pun exists, one is truly unintended. But as I said, it’s a puzzle box, and I’m still figuring it out.

I would have been perfectly happy with another couple songs that kept the quality of the first 10. But “Comedian” is something special, and after 20 years, it’s the song that I am most grateful for. That’s not to disparage the rest of Goliath, which is, all told, one of the year’s best records. I hope this is the start of a renaissance, the first salvo in a long and wonderful second act from an artist I have admired since I was a teenager. Even though Goliath was worth the wait, I hope the next one comes out before I’m 60.

Welcome back, Steve. Thanks for a great record, and for everything you’ve meant to this middle-aged former Jesus kid. You’ve still got it.

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Next week, it’s finally OK to listen to Christmas music. So we will. 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’m a perpetual optimist when it comes to music. I have hope that everything I choose to buy and listen to will be good, will enrich my life in some way. But that doesn’t mean I’m unrealistic.

I routinely buy albums that I expect will not be very good, all the while hoping I’m wrong. Sometimes it’s just completism – I have a fairly dominant collector gene, and I often feel compelled to buy a band’s new work if I have all their older stuff. You could call this ridiculous and I wouldn’t argue. Anyone who has listened to my frequent rants about post-1996 Tori Amos probably curses that particular gene, although without it, I wouldn’t have heard Unrepentant Geraldines this year, and there are at least five songs on that record that I love beyond reason. So I keep buying.

Much of the time, though, I buy new records from lousy bands and artists because I once heard something that sparked my interest, some glimmer of excellence that, if fanned, could catch fire. And I’m waiting to see if the band heard it too. For example, the first Lifehouse album (2000’s No Name Face) contained a tremendous song called “Simon.” It towered over the rest of what was, honestly, a pretty forgettable record. But that song, man. That song is the reason I keep buying Lifehouse albums, and will likely buy their new one next spring. I have not yet liked a Lifehouse song as much as I like “Simon,” and in fact I find most of their output boring, but I live in hope.

I feel similarly about the Foo Fighters, although I usually end up liking Dave Grohl and his merry men quite a bit more. I was never a Nirvana fan, but I love The Colour and the Shape, the second Foo Fighters record, for marrying Nirvana’s aggression and power to some truly epic pop songs. It remains the finest thing Grohl has done, and subsequent Foos albums have mostly been pale imitations. I don’t remember anything about One By One, for example, or Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace. And while I very much enjoyed the compact explosion that was 2011’s Wasting Light, it’s really just another rock record. The Foos aren’t bad, but they’re a far cry from inspiring.

And yet, I had higher hopes for Sonic Highways, their eighth album. You’ve no doubt heard about it by now – each of these eight tracks was recorded in a different city, while the band shot an HBO documentary series about the album’s creation. The idea was to undertake an exploration of each city’s musical history and incorporate those influences into the record. I haven’t seen the series, but based on the album itself, it sounds like something went terribly wrong with that concept.

Here are the eight cities the Foos visited: New York, Chicago, Nashville, New Orleans, Washington D.C., Hollywood, Austin and Seattle. Now, my first problem with that list is the last entry – they’re from Seattle, so that wasn’t much of a sonic highway for them. But the big issue here is that you can’t tell just by listening that this album was recorded in so many different places. If the goal was to capture some of the flavor of these cities in the songs themselves, then this is a total failure. Sonic Highways just sounds like another Foo Fighters album.

I’m listening to “Congregation” right now – this tune was recorded at Southern Ground Studio in Nashville, and features Zac Brown (who is from Georgia, but never mind) on backing vocals. But it sounds like it could fit nicely on Wasting Light. There’s no Nashville in this tune at all. It’s not bad – it has a nice progression, a good arrangement, some kickass drumming from Taylor Hawkins, and a sweet outro jam. But it sounds like the Foo Fighters. “In the Clear” was recorded at Preservation Hall in New Orleans and incorporates the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which is awesome. But they’re rendered faceless – they’re not allowed to add any N’awlins to this typical chugging rocker at all.

So the entire idea is a bust, and what we’re left with is a Foo Fighters album – it’s loud and melodic and punchy, and it’s not as good as The Colour and the Shape. The record gains strength in its home stretch, with two longer tunes. The six-minute “Subterranean” is the Seattle song, so naturally the band feels more comfortable. They invite Ben Gibbard to sing along as well, and the result is worthy. Final track “I Am a River” may be the best – it’s the Los Angeles number, with strings by the L.A. Youth Orchestra, and its seven minutes allows it to blossom. They’re tiny sparks, but they’re enough to keep me listening.

I don’t hate the Foo Fighters, and I don’t hate Sonic Highways. But for a band this celebrated, they’re awfully typical, and even a cross-country musical history tour couldn’t get them to expand those boundaries. Grohl is often described as humble, but honestly, I think he’s just self-aware. He knows his band and his songs are nothing special, even if HBO wants to air a series about them, and despite the promise of Sonic Highways, he keeps walking down the same old roads.

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I don’t hate the Foo Fighters, but I genuinely hate Damien Rice.

I bought O in 2002 because… well, because everybody bought O in 2002. I have a soft spot for “The Blower’s Daughter,” but I found the rest of the album pretty boring. It was clear that Rice had tried to be Jeff Buckley, and failed. Still, I hung on and picked up 9 in 2006. I count that as one of the five worst mistakes of my life. A pained, endless torture session, 9 is one of the most unendurable albums I’ve ever heard, stopping just shy of the depths of that Lou Reed/Metallica thing from a few years ago. Songs like “Me, My Yoke and I” made me want to punch Rice in the face repeatedly, or perhaps hire someone stronger to punch him while I watched. It’s a truly wretched record.

So why, then, did I pay money for Rice’s long-awaited third effort, My Favorite Faded Fantasy? It was partially that collector gene – I have the others, so I need the new one. But I admit that I was intrigued by the record itself. It was produced by Rick Rubin, and if anyone could whip Rice into shape and capture him the way he was meant to sound, it’s Rubin. Before plunking down cash, I heard the first single, “I Don’t Want to Change You,” and I liked it. (Where Rice is concerned, if his songs don’t make me want to throw furniture across the room, that means I liked them.) Still, I was prepared for the worst.

But I ended up enjoying Faded Fantasy much more than anything else I’ve heard from Rice. This album took eight years to make, and it sounds like it – songs stretch to eight and nine minutes, strings augment just about everything, and an army of musicians assembled to bring these ideas to life. The album begins with subtle acoustic guitar and Rice’s falsetto, but it isn’t long before the waves of sound start to build. Rice sequences the nine-minute “It Takes a Lot to Know a Man” second, so you’re in the deep end early – this song is stunning. The first half is a tender four-chord folk lilt with violins, but the second is a full-on orchestral fantasia, with huge horns and a choir adding to the epic. It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard from Rice, easy.

The album never really gets there again, but that’s OK. “The Greatest Bastard” is old-school Rice, with its delicate finger-picking and vocal whispers over a subtle organ. “I never meant to let you down,” Rice sings with that high, yearning voice, and while the urge to punch him returns now and then, I find that I’m rolling with this. I still like “I Don’t Want to Change You” for its thick strings and its descending melody, and I like “Colour Me In” even more – it’s an oasis of minimalism on this huge, ambitious record. I’m a bit bored by the eight-minute “Trusty and True,” but things end well with the haunting, ever-unfolding “Long Long Way.”

It took eight years, but Damien Rice finally figured out how to balance out his simplistic, folksy side and his let’s-add-some-more-strings side, creating an album that, for the first time, rarely bores me or makes me angry. My Favorite Faded Fantasy isn’t a masterpiece, by any means, but it is the best record of Rice’s career, and the first one I enjoyed all the way through. I suppose this means I don’t hate him anymore, and that I’ll be genuinely interested in buying his fourth album, whenever he finishes it. I’m always happy to have my mind changed, and to see significant growth and improvement from someone I’d written off.

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Speaking of writing artists off, I’ve never quite understood the hype surrounding TV on the Radio.

I’m not even sure what I heard that convinced me to buy their second album, Return to Cookie Mountain. I like to try hyped-up bands for myself, just to make sure I’m not missing anything important, and in the case of TV on the Radio, I think I succeeded in convincing myself that I wasn’t. And yet, I went back and picked up their debut, and have bought every subsequent album. I even bought Kyp Malone’s side project, Rain Machine. So I guess I must have been intrigued by something.

So here is the band’s fifth album, Seeds, and while I enjoyed it, I’m still not sure why I keep on delving into their work. Seeds is the most upbeat and minimal record they’ve made, focusing on simple rhythms and on Tunde Adebimpe’s supple voice. All these songs are straightforward and easy on the ears. The record is full of little pop songs like “Careful You” and “Happy Idiot,” songs that don’t really go anywhere, but have a good time not doing it. “Test Pilot” is surprisingly pretty, and the album is low-key enough that when the guitars come crashing in on “Winter” (and stay for the propulsive “Lazerray”), it’s kind of jarring. But everything is in its right place on the closing tracks, particularly the lovely title song, with its message of optimism: “Rain comes down like it always does, but this time I’ve got seeds on the ground.”

So there’s nothing to hate here, but I still find little to outright love. Seeds is an album that just sort of happens for 53 minutes without mattering a whole lot. I’ve felt the same way about pretty much every TV on the Radio album I’ve heard, so I’m not sure why I keep coming to the table. All I can say is that I’ve bought much worse music from much worse bands, but if I’m looking for something that will change my life, I have serious doubts it will come from this group’s direction. And yet, next time they hold out their hand, I’ll probably pony up.

It’s just the way I’m wired, I guess.

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Next week, the astonishing return of Steve Taylor. 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.

Well. That may have been one of my all-time favorite seasons of Doctor Who.

That is no faint praise. I have been watching the show since I was six, and the season that just wrapped up is the 34th. Doctor Who is now in its 51st year (the anniversary is coming right up), there have been more than 800 episodes, and 12 actors have stepped into the title role, with varying degrees of success. It’s gone from a cult show to a worldwide phenomenon in the last few years, and now sports production values far beyond anything the program has ever seen. And the showrunner is now uber-fan and certified genius Steven Moffat, who has guided our little show to previously undreamt-of heights in the past few years.

But this season… this season was awesome. The extraordinary Peter Capaldi made a striking debut as a brusque, unfriendly Doctor with a fast wit and a tendency to emphasize the big picture over human feelings. His Doctor is impatient, even downright rude, but Capaldi plays this part with such panache that he is never unlikeable. You’re not sure if you should trust him, but then there’s that twinkle in his eye.

As great as Capaldi has been all year, Jenna Coleman has been even more impressive, bringing Clara Oswald to life as a three-dimensional character. She is in every way Capaldi’s equal this season, and her emotional arc – yes, a companion with an emotional arc! – was well-drawn and fully satisfying. And Samuel Anderson, given the short end of the stick as Danny Pink, still developed a tremendous character, building him slowly and subtly. The nature of the show meant that we didn’t spend quite enough time with Danny and Clara to sell their relationship, but Coleman and Anderson made me feel it anyway.

Blessedly, amidst all this wonderful character work, the show remained as insane as it always is. The season began with a dinosaur tromping through Victorian London, and ended with a visit from Santa Claus. In between, we met Robin Hood, saw the Doctor as a young boy, watched a dragon creature hatch from the moon, met an invisible mummy on the outer space version of the Orient Express, fought two-dimensional creatures, watched as a forest sprung up across England overnight, and at the end, met (SPOILER ALERT) a female incarnation of the Doctor’s best enemy, the Master. There isn’t another show I can think of that would do all that in 12 episodes.

And ah, the Master reveal. That was (ahem) masterful. Michelle Gomez played the absolute hell out of the part, striking the balance between madness and calculated villainy better than anyone in the role since Roger Delgado. Reading some of the reaction has been depressing – old-school fans rightly sense that this makes a female incarnation of the Doctor inevitable, and they’re scared by the idea. I say bring it on. It’s clear that the production team will cast the right actor/actress for the part, as Gomez proved. And it would be further evidence that this is a show that can do absolutely anything, at any time. Which is why I love it.

I have some problems with the finale, particularly the “power of love” stuff that has cropped up since the show’s revival in 2005. The Master’s plan, though typically nuts, didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and the hoops I had to jump through to get to the emotional payoffs were often too great an effort. But the final scenes (before Santa), with the Doctor and Clara bidding farewell? Those may have been the best, most powerful scenes in all of Doctor Who. Beautifully written, acted with phenomenal grace, Capaldi and Coleman doing amazing work. I have gone back and watched just those scenes seven or eight times. They’re perfect.

And then, Santa. Yes, we get Nick Frost as Santa Claus on Christmas day, putting a bow on what has been an absolutely extraordinary run from my little show. Long live Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, and long live Doctor Who. See you at Christmas.

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Speaking of long-lived British institutions, there’s a new Pink Floyd album.

Floyd has been around almost as long as Doctor Who, forming in 1965 as one of the most psychedelic bands in the London scene. Within two years they’d lost Syd Barrett and gained David Gilmour, and the classic lineup (also including Roger Waters, Richard Wright and Nick Mason) was in place. And then they proceeded to make records like no one on earth had ever made records before. Say what you will about The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, and on and on, but there is nothing else quite like them. They developed a signature style – usually slow and spacey, songs building gradually, melodies unfurling patiently, Gilmour’s thick and watery guitar solos intertwining with Wright’s swirling keyboards. Others who take up that style now are walking in Floyd’s footsteps. They’re without a doubt one of the most influential bands in modern music history.

I knew none of that when I first heard “Learning to Fly” at the age of 12, in 1987. I just thought it was an awesome song. I also had no idea I was hearing the first single from the post-Waters Pink Floyd, which must have been a shock to longtime fans. A Momentary Lapse of Reason was quite unlike any of the Floyd albums before it – Gilmour became the dominant force, his guitar filling all the empty spaces, his utilitarian voice singing these more accessible, poppier tunes. (Would Waters have stood for “One Slip”? My guess is no.) Still, this was the Pink Floyd I first fell in love with.

The Division Bell came out in 1994, when I was a sophomore in college. It was essentially the same record as Momentary Lapse. I knew enough by then to know that while Division Bell was a pretty good album, it wasn’t a good Pink Floyd album. That said, I don’t know if it felt like a finale to me then, but it does now. Gilmour wrestles throughout with his relationship with Waters, concludes that they all need to “Keep Talking,” and ends things with “High Hopes,” probably the best late-period Floyd song. As time wore on and no new music appeared, I found myself more and more happy with Division Bell as the last Floyd album, a status that seemed to solidify when Wright died in 2008.

So what am I to do with The Endless River, the just-released 15th (and final, they swear this time) Pink Floyd record? I found myself torn on it before I’d even heard it. For starters, it’s not really new – this is an assembled collection of material recorded during the Division Bell sessions, with new performances grafted on top. The idea was to find everything of releasable quality that Wright performed and create something new from it. Just as an idea, this could go either way – it could be loving tribute to a departed bandmate, or it could be a cash grab perpetrated by two people whose names would not sell this material on their own.

At best, The Endless River is a coda to the Floyd saga, not a full-fledged final act. Save for the last track, it is entirely instrumental, and more than that, almost entirely formless. Wright’s keyboards waft in and out, usually holding a single chord or two, while Mason’s drums tumble in here and there, playing at their usual snail’s pace. And in the absence of any lyrics or melody, there is Gilmour’s guitar, slathered over every surface. There are occasional breaks in the endless guitar solo, but they’re not long – Mason takes center stage for a minute on “Skins,” for instance. Mostly, though, it’s monochromatic, like an entire album of “Cluster One” from Division Bell.

In case it wasn’t clear that The Endless River is an album of leftovers, there’s an outtake from “Keep Talking,” the song that included guest vocals from Stephen Hawking. Here he is again on the unfortunately titled “Talkin’ Hawkin’,” his voice recorded 20 years ago, set to the same keyboard washes and guitar noodles as the rest of the album. The instrumental portion of the album goes on for three and a half sides – roughly 45 minutes – and all you really need is a six-minute bit on side one, fittingly called “It’s What We Do.”

And then the record ends with “Louder Than Words,” the one song with lyrics. And of course, they’re self-referential, intended as a fond farewell from the band to itself. “We bitch and we fight, dis each other on sight, but this thing we do,” Gilmour sings, concluding that the music Pink Floyd makes is “louder than words, the sum of our parts, the beat of our hearts…” It’s saccharine and kind of goofy and lacking in all subtlety, but at least it seems heartfelt. With this song, I’m willing to give Gilmour and Mason the benefit of the doubt – I think they see The Endless River as a labor of love, and a tender goodbye to Wright and the band.

Given that, I’m inclined to be lenient, despite the fact that this album is a snoozer. I imagine it’s different for Gilmour and Mason, who wanted one last visit with their longtime friend, and also the chance to draw Pink Floyd to a close on their terms. As I am neither Gilmour nor Mason, though, I feel like The Endless River simply isn’t for me. It’s a patchwork quilt of leftovers masquerading as an album, a formless mass of sound that goes nowhere and does nothing. It certainly adds nothing to the legacy of Pink Floyd, and I don’t see myself listening too often in the future.

The Endless River fails at its most important task: it never provides a reason for its own existence. And in the end, I find myself wishing it didn’t exist. It’ll be there now forever, sitting at the end of the Floyd catalog, acting all important and essential when it’s neither of those things. It’s just kind of… there. Which is something Pink Floyd has rarely, if ever, been.

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Next week, three records I expect to hate. 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.

November already? Insane.

This is about the time each year when new releases start drying up, and I’m left with live records and rarities collections. And while those are coming – I’m looking forward to rarities sets by Soundgarden and Wilco, for instance – the new stuff just keeps arriving. I am most excited by the imminent arrival of Goliath, the first Steve Taylor album in 20 years, but we have Pink Floyd, Foo Fighters, Copeland, Damien Rice, Tourniquet, TV on the Radio, Manchester Orchestra, Wu-Tang Clan and Smashing Pumpkins still to come this year, and possibly Quiet Company, if they get that fourth album out in time.

And this week, I have three more important records, one of which is likely going to find its way into my top 10 list. All three of them would fall under the umbrella of folk music, an appellation I have always found a little weird. I don’t like genre boxes anyway, but folk, like pop, seems particularly far-reaching. Anything with an acoustic guitar could conceivably be called folksy. So here is my little attempt to show three different sides of what we would term folk music, and talk about their differences.

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It’s been two years since Ani DiFranco released an album.

For most artists, that wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. But DiFranco has never been most artists. The fiercely independent owner of Righteous Babe Records has never had anyone telling her what music to release, or how often, so for most of her career, she’s been impressively prolific. Between 1990 and 2008, she released 18 studio albums (two with Utah Phillips) and a bunch of live records and EPs. Since 2008, she’s put out one, 2012’s Which Side Are You On.

So in some ways, the appearance of Allergic to Water in half the time that its predecessor took to emerge is cause for celebration. In other ways, though, it’s indicative of DiFranco’s new, slower pace, and fans like me are just going to have to live with that. DiFranco is now a married mother of two, and at age 44, she isn’t running on the treadmill at quite the same speed. The upside of this – and it’s a huge upside – is that DiFranco is wonderfully happy, and she’s making joyous, life-loving music. Allergic to Water may be her sunniest album ever, and for longtime fans, it’s a treat to hear her like this.

That’s not to say this record is all rainbows and sunshine. Many of its 12 songs delve deeper into DiFranco’s marriage to Mike Napolitano than she’s ever gone, particularly the darkest of them, “Careless Words.” It details the aftermath of a fight, in which regrettable things are said: “Never before could I picture even one foot out the door, but now that that door has been opened, it can never be closed, careless words I can never unknow…” “Harder Than It Needs to Be” is about bringing those fights back around to productive discussions: “We’d better just take a step back, we better take a breath, see what we can see, let’s not make this harder than it needs to be…”

But those are more than balanced out by the delirious love songs that populate much of this record, and they’re splendid things. “Wipe away my worries, my list of things to do, there’s flies in the kitchen and I’m still in love with you,” she sings in “See See See See,” and she waxes rhapsody in “Genie”: “You came out of the blue like twilight’s first star and we picked up on each other from somewhere deep and far, and we woke up married after one drunk fuck and I couldn’t believe you’d found me, I couldn’t believe my luck…” “Tr’w” and “Yeah Yr Right” and “Still My Heart” are all rapturous love songs, DiFranco repeating “I’m so into you” with a smile.

If this all sounds a bit domestic, well, you’re not wrong. The fiery political side of DiFranco’s writing definitely takes a back seat here – the worst she says about the world is that “we get so off track sometimes.” Instead, she’s all about the silver lining this time. The title track is about perspective, about realizing that people are doing the best they can. “Rainy Parade” is an exhortation to “take your lemons and make lemonade,” to look at the best life has to offer instead of the worst. And “Happy All the Time” is exactly what it sounds like, with no irony.

DiFranco is in a new emotional place, but musically, she’s taken a few more steps down the path she’s always been on. She’s undergone a consistent evolution from wrist-spraining acoustic folk-punk to quieter jazz balladry, with thick and complex chords and melodies that swerve hither and yon. She’s backed up by longtime bassist Todd Sickafoose and drummer Terence Higgins, and together they form a tight, jazzy trio. Ivan Neville plays keys on much of this album, adding a soulful element, and DiFranco has arranged some subtle horn parts here and there. She croons these songs with a quiet grace, like she’s having an intimate chat with the front row instead of aiming for the balcony.

And that’s Allergic to Water all over. It’s a delightfully personal slice of her life, one that finds her happier than I can remember ever hearing her. For longtime fans, it might be a shock – the anger has slowly seeped out of her music, and has been replaced by contentment and joy. For me, it’s wonderful. Others can pick up the Angry Young Woman mantle DiFranco wore so well. Her life is in a good place, and this album is a quiet celebration. If this means we’ll get fewer records, then so be it. I’ll be happy with the occasional drop-in on her life, and I’ll celebrate it right along with her.

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Two years ago, Australian band Husky made a huge impression on me with their silky-yet-earthy debut album Forever So. I put it in my top 10 list, and proclaimed songs like “History’s Door” and “Hunter” among my favorites of the year. I evangelized about them, and spared no opportunity to thank Rob Hale for turning me on to them.

It’s looking a lot like Rob and I are the only ones on this side of the Atlantic who care, though. Husky’s second album, Ruckers Hill, is out now down under, and I had to import it, as no stateside label seems poised to release it. This makes even reviewing it a tricky proposition for me, because if you want to try it, I’m not even sure where to send you. I’m willing to pay import prices for an album like this, but I doubt everyone is.

The true shame of this, for those of us in the U.S., is that Ruckers Hill is extraordinary, somehow an even better Husky record than the debut. Husky’s sound has evolved and refined, a tremendous mix of Fleet Foxes and Simon and Garfunkel, and the band’s songwriting has blossomed. There are 13 songs on Ruckers Hill, and there isn’t a single one I don’t in some way love. This makes talking about highlights tough, but I’ll try.

There’s first single “Saint Joan,” which finds room for the word “somnambulist” in its first two lines. It’s a stunning folk-pop song, lead singer Husky Gawenda wrapping the band’s harmonies around him on the descending chorus: “Oh, I am leaving, I am leaving…” “Heartbeat” is its equal, a deceptively simple number that explodes into something eminently hummable. “For to Make a Lead Weight Float” shows Mumford and Sons how to do thumping minor-key folk right, and the amazing “I’m Not Coming Back” darts from one sky-high melody to another, Gawenda singing of burning his hometown to the ground. The spoken section, unlike most spoken sections, is awesome.

The second half is somehow better than the first, buoyed by the tremendous “Arrow” and the particularly Paul Simon-esque “Mirror.” “Fats Domino” is one of Husky’s finest, opening like a ‘60s folk song and unfolding into a dynamic, beautiful anthem. I love this one more each time I hear it, and the care the band lavished on this song (and the other 12) brings me to my feet. Straight to the final track, the emotional “Deep Sky Diver,” this record keeps the beauty and gracefulness coming. I’m listening right now, trying to skip around and talk about individual tunes, and it’s difficult because I just want to keep listening to the whole thing.

Suffice it to say that Ruckers Hill is one of the year’s very best, and Husky one of the finest new bands I’m aware of. There has been a glut of folksy-pop bands lately, from Mumford to the Lumineers, and Husky outshines them all by keeping the focus on glorious, glorious songwriting. It’s hard to believe this is only their second record, and even harder to believe that so few people outside of Australia will hear it. If I’ve convinced you to give them a try, you can hear and order their stuff here. I hope I’ve convinced you.

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And finally, we have Ben Howard, another newbie making his second record.

I’ve said that Ben Howard is everything I want Damien Rice to be. Howard plays textured yet spacious electric folk music with epic track lengths and impassioned vocals, but unlike Rice, he doesn’t make me want to punch him in the throat every 30 seconds. Howard’s songs are driving things that leave room for a lot of air, yet dive down fascinating little tunnels, more than justifying their lengths.

Howard does everything right on his sophomore effort, I Forget Where We Were. It’s bigger, and yet it sounds more focused, the spotlight on Howard’s voice and blissful guitar playing. “Rivers in Your Mouth” rides its one guitar figure for five minutes, but it never gets tired – Howard finds new ways to elaborate on it as it goes along. The title track ebbs and flows masterfully, building up in the verses before crashing back down in the choruses. Throughout, Howard and his co-conspirators spin a dark, weighty atmosphere. Most of the time, it’s just guitars, bass and drums, but it feels like so much more. And yet, the instrumentation is loose enough to breathe.

Songs get longer in the second half, with the swirling “Time Is Dancing” leading you through seven reserved minutes and depositing you in “Evergreen,” a captivating, tender dirge. “End of the Affair” is longest at nearly eight minutes, but it earns every second, and I wish it were longer. Howard spins a particular spell with this record, one that fills whatever room you play it in, and winds its way around you, holding you close.

It turns out we’re going to get the chance to directly compare Ben Howard with Damien Rice next month, as Rice returns with his first record in a decade. I haven’t heard that, but my money would still be on Howard. I Forget Where We Were is a confident, lovely album, a second effort that cements him as a talent to watch. And I’ll be watching.

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There we go. Jazzy folk music, poppy melodic folk music, and sparse emotional folk music. All different, all worth hearing.

Next week, Pink Floyd, and probably a summation of Doctor Who’s 34th season. 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.