Ryan Adams released his full-album cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989 just more than a week ago, and I’ve already read a dozen think-pieces about What It All Means.

Longtime readers, I’m sure, know that I’m not that guy. Wider cultural trends and political statements rarely make their way into this column. I’d much rather talk about the music itself. That’s good and bad – sometimes that broader context would strengthen my work, and I’m aware of that. I just find so much of it less interesting than the music. Same in this case – while much of the talk about Adams’ 1989 has been about the fact that it’s garnering attention from critics and music fans who didn’t have time for Swift’s original, I just think that’s kind of obvious. And, I expect, part of the point.

I’m one of those critics. I like Swift fine, and I think her 1989 is a pretty good glittery pop album. It’s really the same kind of songs she’s been writing (or co-writing) all along, dressed up in pop production, and that’s its strength, I believe. Swift’s country roots ground her more than the people her producers – mainly Max Martin and Shellback – usually work with. But I never felt moved to write about it, or to write about Swift as a pop-cultural force. She’s someone I keep tabs on, and I expect the records she makes in her 30s will be much more interesting.

This, to music fans like me, is why Adams covering Swift’s entire album is fascinating, though. Adams is more of a musical force than a cultural one – he’s one of the best songwriters of his generation (which is my generation too, since we’re the same age) and has crafted a consistent, deep catalog of wonderful tunes. He’s widely respected by his fellow musicians – he could give classes on songwriting, and many names you’d recognize would sign up for them. So if Ryan Adams hears something in 1989 that makes him want to cover the entire record, that’s significant.

That’s not even what’s really interesting, though. Adams could have cranked out half-hearted versions of Swift’s songs and still cashed in on the publicity, but it’s clear that he genuinely loves this record. Adams’ 1989 is a complete reinvention that thoroughly respects the original, recasting it as an ‘80s alternative record, full of chiming guitars and layers of sound. His version moves 1989 from pop radio to college radio – it really sounds like something Brown University’s station, WBRU, might have played when I was in high school. But it does so lovingly, only changing what it has to in order to match Adams’ sensibilities.

In doing so, he’s elevated Swift in the minds of many people who wouldn’t have given her a fair listen. Hearing “Blank Space” as an acoustic plea draws out the sadness that has always been in those lyrics. Playing “Wildest Dreams” the way Tom Petty might have accentuates what a wide-sky-open song of possibility it is. Turning “Shake It Off” into a cousin of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” underlines the resilience that powers it. Stripping “Out of the Woods” down to its barest essentials adds an air of desperation, of crawling to the surface, that was drowned out in the original. This is not a deconstruction of 1989 as much as it is the strongest possible argument Adams could have made for Swift’s songs.

And I think that’s one reason he did it. As much as it’s impossible to predict the mind of Ryan Adams, I think he heard these songs and realized that, in a different context, they’d get much more fair consideration. Adams’ 1989 is too lovingly crafted to be a stunt. I think it’s a show of respect and encouragement. It’s worth noting that when Adams was Swift’s age, he hadn’t even made Heartbreaker yet. I think he sees that Swift’s best songs are ahead of her. I can’t speak for Taylor Swift, but I know that if one of America’s greatest living songwriters decided to cover my entire album, and did it with this much care and love, I’d be encouraged to keep getting better.

I think that’s what this is about: a more experienced and acclaimed songwriter giving a younger colleague a hand up, publicly saying “you’re one of us.” And if his 1989 proves anything, it’s that Swift deserves this encouragement. The songs at the heart of 1989 are good ones, and we need more good songs and good songwriters. Adams’ 1989 did exactly what it was supposed to – it gave me a new appreciation for Swift’s record, while being a swell Ryan Adams album at the same time.

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In a lot of ways, Leigh Nash has taken the opposite journey that Taylor Swift has.

She started off as an accidental pop star, guiding Sixpence None the Richer to its one megahit, “Kiss Me.” Sixpence was a far better band than that fluffy trifle would indicate – the album it’s on also contains a song that is both in 11/4 and in Spanish, for instance – but after “Kiss Me,” they became much more pop-oriented. When Nash went solo in 2006 with Blue on Blue, she went full-on Sarah McLachlan, even working with McLachlan’s longtime producer, Pierre Marchand.

And now here she is, going country. Her third solo record, The State I’m In, is a hard left turn into Nashville territory. Blessedly, it skips the pop-country boulevards altogether, headed straight for the old-school pick-and-twang that town does best. The State I’m In is basically a Pasty Cline album – its songs are steeped in tradition, about loneliness and cruel hearts and yearning for better places, and decorated with strings and steel guitars. Some of these, like the long-horizon ballad “Chicago,” sound like they could be celebrated classics.

As you can imagine, this is a massive change for Nash, and despite her insistence that she was country before she turned to pop and rock, she sounds a little uncomfortable here. She’s always had a wobbly, waifish voice, and many of these songs require someone a little more full-throated. She’s good at the poppier ones, like “Mountain,” with its jaunty keyboards and horns, and “What’s Behind Me,” which sounds like something the Mavericks might do. But when it comes to real country tunes like the title track, her voice doesn’t fit as well as it should.

Still, I’m impressed at Nash’s willingness to veer so sharply into new territory, and at her insistence on making an album rooted in traditional country. I don’t know if this is the right style for her to stick with, but she certainly hasn’t jumped in halfway here. If you’re hoping for Nash to return to her Sixpence sound, you probably won’t find much to enjoy here. But if you like hearing artists explore new terrain, for good and bad, The State I’m In is definitely interesting.

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I’m not absolutely sure yet what I think of Meg Myers.

I don’t think I’ve encountered anyone so deliberately straddling the line between fiercely uncompromising art and please-like-me pop in a while. Like many, I was first exposed to Myers through her unsettling, amazing videos. (My favorite is “Curbstomp,” in which she is smothered to death by sadistic stuffed animals.) She looks like the girl next door, and uses those looks to lull you into a false sense of security – her songs are dark, full of self-loathing, fear and regret. And yet, with the help of her partner in crime, Dr. Rosen Rosen, they’re all huge productions, full-sounding and ready for their close-up. There’s no grime in her work, unless you look closely.

Myers makes these two impulses work together beautifully throughout her debut album, Sorry. Her lyrics are simultaneously heartfelt and clichéd – the word “baby” appears in half the songs, the title track pivots around the line “sorry I lost our love,” and the heartache that songs like “Parade” are built around is pretty generic. But then she stuns with a dark sex song like “Desire,” or a difficult slice of depression like “I Want You to Hate Me.” “Lemon Eyes” is a skipping pop song – tone down those staccato guitars on the chorus and it wouldn’t be out of place on Taylor Swift’s album – but just two songs later, she’s utterly devastating you with “The Morning After,” chronicling a personal tragedy with a lump in her throat.

The music walks those lines gracefully too. Rosen plays nearly all the instruments on this record, most of them electronic, and he works in some Nine Inch Nails and Garbage influences with his modern pop leanings. Myers writes catchy melodies, even for her darkest songs – I sometimes find myself singing “Desire,” which is pretty embarrassing, and “Make a Shadow” is remarkably catchy for a song about hiding from the world. Opener “Hotel” is everything she does well – it shimmers underneath her while she belts out a jaunty melody about giving up (“Wanna love, wanna live, wanna breathe, wanna give, but it’s hard and it’s dark and we’re doomed from the start”), complete with an infectious “whoa-oh-oh.” And right in the middle there, she samples Townes Van Zandt talking about why he writes songs about hopelessness.

That points to intriguing ambitions beyond what’s here, and I will definitely keep listening. In some ways, I hope Meg Myers cranks up the PJ Harvey aspects of what she does, but in some ways, I hope she’s able to keep walking that line, crafting commercial music that doesn’t sound creatively compromised. I think she could be huge, and I’m hoping she makes that journey with all of this fascinating honesty intact.

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I wish I found Chvrches as interesting.

I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like them. On the contrary, I think they’re swell – Lauren Mayberry has a nice voice, and the trio plays off it well, building chilly yet welcoming electronic beds beneath it. Their second album, Every Open Eye, builds on their first, offering 11 well-crafted electro-pop tunes about love and pain. “Leave a Trace” is a strong single, and gives you a good indication of the album. I like this just fine.

I just don’t have a lot to say about it. Songs like “Keep You On My Side” pulse along nicely, and Mayberry is in fine form throughout. The band slips into an Erasure impression here and there, and I like Erasure, so that’s good. Martin Doherty takes the mic on the finger-pointing “High Enough to Carry You Over,” and while I didn’t need a break from Mayberry’s voice, it’s at least an interesting change. But this is a record that kind of starts and ends without (ahem) leaving a trace. It’s good, definitely, and if you liked the first Chvrches record, you’ll like this even more. I’m just out of words about it.

I have the same problem with Dodge and Burn, the third album from the Dead Weather. It’s exactly the kind of swampy-stompy rock you’ve come to expect from Jack White’s supergroup – if you liked the first two, you’ll like this. The Dead Weather is always White’s opportunity to stay behind the scenes and collaborate more, and that song remains the same on Dodge and Burn. Allison Mosshart, of the Kills, is the true star here – she sings almost all of the lead vocals, and she rocks. She spits through a riff monster like “Buzzkill(er)” with abandon, and it’s a fiery wonder to behold.

But again, this is exactly what you expect it is, almost all the way through. The big exception is the final track, “Impossible Winner,” performed on piano with a string section. This song gives Mosshart the chance to show how tuneful she can be. It’s not a great song, but it is a different one. I feel like I have to mention records like Every Open Eye and Dodge and Burn, since they’re from pretty big names, and I do like them both. But they don’t excite me or surprise me, and as much as I enjoy them, I find myself wishing they did.

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Well, it’s time to wake up Billie Joe Armstrong, because September’s over. That means it’s time for the Third Quarter Report – or, what my top 10 list would look like if I were to publish it right now. Honestly, this is probably going to be pretty close to the finished list. I know of a few things coming out before the end of the year that have potential, but not many, and one of them – the new Mutemath album, Vitals – hasn’t impressed me with either of its singles. Could be some surprises, you never know, but for now, here is what the list looks like:

10. Marah in the Mainsail, Thaumatrope.
9. Lianne la Havas, Blood.
8. Foals, What Went Down.
7. Aqualung, 10 Futures.
6. Jason Isbell, Something More Than Free.
5. Timbre, Sun and Moon.
4. Punch Brothers, The Phosphorescent Blues.
3. Quiet Company, Transgressor.
2. The Dear Hunter, Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise.
1. (Tie) Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly; Sufjan Stevens, Carrie and Lowell.

Eventually I will likely pick between Lamar and Stevens, but not yet. I am still getting equal amounts of awesome out of both, for very different reasons, and I don’t know which I would choose. I have a bunch of Number Elevens, including the Weepies, Copeland, Florence and the Machine, Frank Turner, Joy Williams and Everything Everything. It’s been a pretty good year.

Next week, more, including a tremendous new album from Joe Jackson. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I don’t know how to explain it, but somehow Ryan Adams covering Taylor Swift has become my favorite thing of the week.

As I’m sure you all know, Adams decided – because this is often the kind of thing he decides – to cover Swift’s entire 1989 album in his own style. I’m writing these words before the album comes out, but it will be available by the time you read them. The above-linked track, a delightful acoustic-rock version of “Bad Blood,” is all I have to go on. But I think Adams found the heart of this song, and gently coaxed it out. If the rest of this weird little detour is as well-considered as this tune, I’ll be happy. Meanwhile, I’ll just play “Bad Blood” again. And again.

UPDATE: I’ve heard it all now, and it’s pretty great. More next week.

Adams has had a lot of competition for my attention this week – I bought 11 new records on Friday, and I’m expecting to buy 12 more next Friday. The first two weeks of October should bring about the same. There’s no way I can listen to and review everything coming out over the next month, so I’m going to pick as many as I can and write as few words as possible to cram as many reviews together as I can. As I’m sure even the most casual of readers has realized by now, brevity is not my strong suit. So we’ll see how this goes.

The connecting thread this week? All five of my subjects have been around for a pretty long time, doing what they do. Let’s see how that’s worked out for them.

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I’ve been worrying about the new Slayer album.

Not in the same way that I worry about my cholesterol, or about my mortgage payment, or anything like that. But worry just the same. Slayer is justly revered among metal fans for being one of the Big Four from the ‘80s (along with Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax), and for influencing pretty much every speed metal band that came after them. Their catalog is one of the most consistent in metal, for good or ill – you know what you’re going to get with Slayer.

To expand on that: Slayer has always been the most rock-steady of the Big Four. Where Metallica and Megadeth slowed down and went commercial and Anthrax tried to fit in with the alt-rock of the ‘90s, Slayer remained Slayer. No collaborations with Lou Reed for them. No banjos, no Dann Huff behind the boards, no dalliances with rap. This means that one album sounds like another, by and large, and the upswings in quality come when the band commit to that high-speed rage-fueled steamroller thing they do. That’s why there are only a few essential Slayer albums – the mediocre ones are simply lesser versions of the good ones.

Recently, Slayer seemed to be on one of those upswings – they welcomed original drummer Dave Lombardo back to the fold for 2006’s Christ Illusion, a powerhouse explosion of beats and riffs that never let up for 38 minutes. 2009’s World Painted Blood was just as good, if a little less heavy on the accelerator. But then two things happened that seemed to derail the Slayer train: Lombardo left the band again, and in May of 2013, founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman died after a long illness. Hanneman, as Slayer fans know, was a key member of their songwriting team, and his passing hit hard.

So now here is Repentless, the 12th Slayer album and the first one that finds the band picking up the pieces. Tom Araya and Kerry King are soldiering on, bringing back drummer Paul Bostaph (who played with the band from 1992 to 2001) and welcoming guitarist Gary Holt. But there’s no escaping the fact that this is half of Slayer trying to sound like a whole. It’s surprising how well they pull it off – the record is solid, if uninspiring, and doesn’t sully the band’s legacy. But it seems less than necessary.

Repentless sounds to me like a diminished retread of Slayer’s mid-‘90s albums – it sports some loud ragers like the admittedly awesome “Implode,” some slower epics like “When the Stillness Comes,” and a lot of mid-tempo stock-sounding metal like “Vices.” Everyone here gives their all, particularly Araya, who shouts like a man half his age. (He’s 54, if you needed a reason to feel old.) Araya’s lyrics are standard fare, raging against the evils of the world while calling out religion as a crutch people use to avoid personal responsibility. “Pride in Prejudice” seems particularly timely – it’s a screed against violent racists in power.

So yeah, it’s fine. But Hanneman’s touch is sorely missed in the songwriting – tunes like “Piano Wire” are completely anonymous, and the album stays on one note for longer than it should – and as good as Bostaph is, he doesn’t have the power of Lombardo. Repentless is a pretty good Slayer album, particularly considering the circumstances, but not an essential one, and if Araya and King decide to pack it in after this, I won’t be surprised.

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English art-pop merchants Duran Duran have been around longer than Slayer, but they show no signs of slowing down. Every few years since 1981, Duran Duran have released a new album, and almost every time, that new album is called a comeback. Truthfully, they never went away. Their new one, Paper Gods, is their 14th, and even though it now seems to take them four years to make something new, they remain worth hearing every time they do.

Paper Gods finds the band continuing their eternal quest to sound timely and relevant while maintaining their essential Duran Duran-ness. This has always been their story – they have changed with the times, working with hot producers and collaborating with young up-and-comers, but the best Duran Duran outings are the ones that respect their compelling, dramatic center, dressing it up but never dumbing it down.

Recently they’ve worked with producers like Timbaland, Nate “Danja” Hills and Mark Ronson. Paper Gods welcomes back Ronson, but is largely helmed by Mr. Hudson, a protégé of Kanye West. It features guest spots by Janelle Monae, Nile Rodgers (speaking of comebacks), Kiesza and Lindsay Lohan. (Really.) It is unabashedly a bid for airplay and hits, but it’s also a terrific Duran Duran album, perfectly balancing the goofy and melodramatic sides they’ve always shown. Simon Le Bon’s voice remains the band’s most recognizable element, despite the relentless auto-tuning here, but the big-sounding minor-key songwriting at which they’ve always excelled is here in spades.

Truth be told, 90 percent of my problems with this album would have been solved if they’d opened it with track four, “Pressure Off.” It’s the most nimble and catchy single here, sporting vocals by Monae and killer guitar by Rodgers. It’s their “Get Lucky,” basically, but it’s a splendid pop song, full of energy and verve. Instead of leading with “Pressure Off,” though, the band front-loaded this album with moody, slow crawlers, none moodier than the seven-minute title track that opens things. I’m not sure where else on the record I would put these three tracks – they’re the weakest, and slapping them up front sucks the vitality out of everything else.

If you start with “Pressure Off,” though, you’ll have a great Paper Gods experience. “Face For Today” follows energy with energy, and leads into the silly yet kind of wonderful “Danceophobia.” (Lohan appears here, diagnosing the title condition in a spoken monologue.) “What Are the Chances” could be a lost Depeche Mode track – it positively soars – while “Change the Skyline” harnesses that four-on-the-floor synth pulse. As is their wont, the band closes things with their most widescreen productions – “Only in Dreams” and the stunning “The Universe Alone” each top six minutes, but they earn the extra space.

Hell, even the bonus tracks on the deluxe edition outdo the first three songs. I’m not sure why they made such a blunder, but thankfully it isn’t a fatal one. Paper Gods is a fun, well-made record that updates the Duran Duran sound while studiously protecting it. Don’t call it a comeback, they’ve been here for years – nearly 40 of them, in fact, and they’re as good now as they’ve ever been.

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Speaking of long-running art-pop stars, there’s Prince.

Here’s a guy who doesn’t need to put out new music. His legacy is 100 percent assured – he will be remembered as one of the finest musicians ever, a visionary who leapt fully formed into the public consciousness and proceeded to define his own place in the firmament. Prince has never stood still, never rested on his laurels, always pushed his work forward. He’s made something like 50 albums – it’s hard to get an accurate count – and has reportedly finished and shelved at least that many in the nearly four decades since his debut. New Prince albums are still treated like events. The man is 57 years old and remains as productive as he was in his twenties, despite not needing the money for a long, long time. He doesn’t have to make new music, but I’m always glad when he does.

His new one, Hit n Run Phase One, is significant because it’s the first one in his vast catalog with a co-producer on board. Joshua Welton is a 25-year-old prodigy from my adopted hometown of Aurora, Illinois, and he’s responsible for most of the sounds on Hit n Run. I was very curious to hear this thing – what about Welton’s work inspired Prince to relinquish control over his sound for the first time? Now that I’ve heard it, it’s pretty clear – Prince and Welton work well together, and their collaborative sound is a meticulously updated take on Prince’s soul-pop template.

Last time Prince consciously tried to update that sound we got Diamonds and Pearls and the unpronounceable symbol album, and while Hit n Run isn’t as immediately successful as those records, it does sound a lot less forced, a lot more natural. Prince seems relaxed and comfortable here – he even cedes the spotlight on the first track, “Million $ Show,” to singer Judith Hill. Prince raps, and sings in that inimitable falsetto, and lays down tremendous bass grooves and searing guitar leads – just listen to the update of “This Could B Us,” a slow-burn powerhouse that first appeared in less interesting form on last year’s Art Official Age. Welton, meanwhile, surrounds Prince with some of the most interesting beats and sounds he’s enjoyed in a while.

My only problem with Hit n Run is that it glides right by quickly without really sinking its teeth in. The songs on Hit n Run are beat-based, meaning there aren’t a lot of melodic detours, and Prince doesn’t take things in the strange flight-of-fancy directions he’s known for. Very few of these songs have strong hooks – the best things here set a mood and build on it, like “Hardrocklover” and “1000 Xs and Os.” I’m sure a lot of this stems from Prince’s still-burgeoning artistic relationship with Welton, and if they make more records together – Hit n Run Phase Two, for instance – they’ll get more comfortable. As it is, this first phase of Hit n Run is slight, but enjoyable and intriguing. Looking forward to more.

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Even though Prince is 57, he still has that creative fire that marks his best work. He’s still hungry, still eager to try new things. Here’s hoping he doesn’t become like David Gilmour in a dozen years. At 69, the Pink Floyd guitarist and singer has collapsed into creative complacency – his fourth solo album, Rattle That Lock, is pretty much what you’d expect from him at this point. If you’re into what he does, you’ll like this fine.

Me, I was hoping for something less predictable. Rattle That Lock opens with nature sounds, ambient washes and guitar soloing, just like his last record, 2006’s On an Island, and just like that not-really-Pink-Floyd album from last year, The Endless River. It contains two quicker numbers, the title track and the almost danceable “Today,” and eight slow, easy, quiet pieces that threaten to build in intensity but never really do. (Only “In Any Tongue” makes headway in that area, matching its socially conscious lyrics to a wider sound.) Three of those are instrumentals, which are basically excuses for Gilmour to improvise on guitar.

But he doesn’t need an excuse – that dramatic guitar tone is everywhere here, on every song. Gilmour is a fine guitar player, but he’s played exactly the same way for decades, and we’ve heard everything he has to offer in that arena. My favorite moments of Rattle That Lock are the ones that explore new ground, however tentatively – the lush harmonies, courtesy of Crosby and Nash, on “A Boat Lies Waiting,” for instance, or the lilting jazz beat and cool string parts on “Dancing Right In Front of Me.”

However, the most offbeat moment here doesn’t work for me at all – the pseudo-jazz ballad “The Girl in the Yellow Dress” brings in Colin Stetson on sax and Jools Holland on piano, but still sounds like the work of a 69-year-old English guy who plays in an artsy prog band. (If you’re coming to David Gilmour for this kind of thing, there are many other and better places to get it.) Gilmour is more comfortable doing what he normally does, which he does on most of this record – slow songs, long solos. I knew what 80 percent of this would sound like before I heard a note of it. That’s unfortunate, but par for the course.

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I think some of Chris Cornell’s fans would be happier if he took a leaf out of David Gilmour’s book. For more than 25 years, Cornell has confounded people who want him to stay in one place and be one thing.

He spent 10 of those years leading Soundgarden as they moved from raucous psychedelic metal to tricky, thoughtful rock in weird time signatures. His solo debut, Euphoria Morning, was quieter and simpler, but just as he was establishing a new identity, he joined Audioslave and churned out blocky riff-rock for three records. His return to solo recording came complete with a bizarre, laughable cover of “Billie Jean,” and then he threw his biggest curve ball, Scream, a whole album of synth-driven pop produced by Timbaland. And then he reunited with Soundgarden.

There’s really no way to know what Cornell is up to until you hear it. True to form, his fourth solo album, Higher Truth, is unlike any of the others – it’s a folksy, acoustic-driven record of small, pretty songs, seemingly designed to re-establish two essential truths. First, Chris Cornell is a heck of a good songwriter – these tunes are lovely and memorable, as straightforward as he’s ever been and still compelling – and second, he has one of the best voices in rock. He hasn’t lost a note from his younger, throatier days. He sings these songs beautifully.

Higher Truth starts out strong, with three straight-up winners (including the single, “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart”), falls off a little in the middle – folksier songs like “Through the Window” are a little too standard for me – and ends just as strong. Finale “Our Time in the Universe” is a bit of an anomaly, with its trippy beat, loud chorus and swooping strings, but it sends the record off in style. It also serves as a reminder that this isn’t a rambling folk record – this is a considered stripping down, a pop record more intricate than it initially appears. Again, confounding.

I happen to like confounding as an artistic quality, though, and I’m probably one of very few people who have appreciated everything Chris Cornell has done. (I still love Scream. He may have disowned it, but I think it’s great.) Higher Truth is another left turn, but the results seem unimpeachable. It’s a really good little record from a guy who has been writing great songs and singing the hell out of them for a quarter century now. Given his track record, I’m on board for anything he wants to do next.

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Wow, lot of words. Expect about as many next week as le deluge continues. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I have always responded well to orchestras.

I know some people think orchestral music is bombastic, and the use of strings in pop music is both beyond the pale and over the top. I’ve never felt this way. Orchestral arrangements, to me, connote grandeur and importance, and they have since I was a kid. Not counting actual orchestral music, which I have always appreciated – my grandmother was a concert pianist and loved most things with strings – the first time I can recall being gobsmacked by an orchestral part in a rock song was “Closer to Home,” by Grand Funk Railroad. My father had a best-of on LP when I was a pre-teen, and I listened to that song over and over. (“Loneliness” was on there too, and that also did it for me.)

After that, well, I can remember buying the great Moody Blues album Days of Future Passed and adoring “Nights in White Satin” particularly. I can remember hearing the Pet Shop Boys’ remarkable “Left to My Own Devices” and marveling at the sweeping strings rubbing up against the mundane lyrics. But most of all, I can remember the first time I heard “A Day in the Life,” the monumental closing track of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and having my fragile little mind blown by the insane cacophonous crescendos at its mid-point and finale. I’d never heard anything like it. The Beatles used strings like few other bands before or since, and that’s just one of the millions of reasons I love them.

After that, anything that could be described as symphonic had me at hello. When underrated funk-rock band Extreme announced that their third album would include a 20-minute suite performed with an 80-piece orchestra, I think you could hear my heart rate speed up. The stunning result, “Everything Under the Sun,” is still a favorite. Harder-edged bands like Metallica and Dream Theater got into the act, and I ate it up. Pain of Salvation composed a wonderful record called Be with an outfit called the Orchestra of Eternity, and I play that thing at least once every six months. I’ve bought symphonic records from the likes of Yes and Elvis Costello and XTC and adored them. And Frank Zappa’s orchestral work is some of my favorite music ever.

I will probably never be good enough to write orchestral music – it still awes me that one can harness 70 or 80 players and create such incredible sounds with them. I think the lure of that kind of compositional power draws in a lot of musicians, at least once. If you have the opportunity to do something like that, I imagine you’d want to take advantage of it. For me, then, it was no surprise when Ben Folds announced that he’d written a concerto for piano and orchestra. At a certain point in a career like his, that seems inevitable.

Folds has always worked with strings, from the very first Ben Folds Five album – there’s a swell quartet playing on the lovely “Boxing” – and I’ve always enjoyed the dimensions those arrangements bring to his work. Some are considering his new album, So There, a departure, and I guess at first glance it might seem like one. In addition to his three-movement concerto, So There features eight self-described “chamber-rock” songs arranged and performed with New York ensemble yMusic. And while those arrangements are pretty neat, I have a hard time imagining listening to those first eight songs and thinking them the work of anyone else.

If there’s a departure here, it’s in the bitterness and rancor of the lyrics, which plumb darker depths than Folds usually does. They’re actually something of an unpleasant experience, Folds lashing out at (I presume) his recently-ex-wife again and again. Opener “Capable of Anything” is one of the album’s best, its colorful arrangement leaping from the speakers, and its words comparably gentle – it’s about how the phrase “capable of anything” could be used to mean that one is capable of great harm as well as great achievement. Its chorus includes the first slap: “I stopped caring what you think about me, I gave up…”

“Not a Fan” is a delightfully orchestrated ballad about differences of artistic opinion that turns cranky in the middle, Folds switching from “I’m not a fan but maybe I could learn to be” to “I’ll wait in the lobby” to “go get your t-shirt signed, fan girl, I may or may not be here when you return.” (There’s a spoken “so fuck you” at the end, just to drive the point home.) The title song is lively, strings swirling about the percussive piano, while Folds turns petulant on the mic: “You taught me nothing, I owe you nothing, how could I forget you when there’s nothing to forget, so there…” The title phrase conveys the sense that Folds knows he’s being petty, but it doesn’t stop him.

Thankfully, the words only really detract from the stellar arrangements on first listen, before the shock wears off. The final minutes of “So There” are superb, piano and strings and drums and oboes and clarinets all weaving together into a lovely blanket. The only one that doesn’t work is “Phone in a Pool,” the disposable first single. I’m also put off by the crudeness of “F10-D-A,” a brief musical joke at a fourth-grade humor level that Folds somehow convinced everyone to fully orchestrate. (Effed in the A, get it?) I cringe at “Yes Man,” with its “why didn’t you tell me that I got fat” lyrical conceit that winds its way to this stinker: “Now I’m crying all the way from the photomat because I see I’ve got more chins than a Chinese phonebook has.” Yes, for real.

Most of that I can forgive by the time Folds gets to the final of these songs, “I’m Not the Man.” It’s a remarkably mature piece of work, bitter and dark, sung with a frayed urgency in his voice. “There could be fewer days ahead than gone,” he sings, concluding that he’s not the man he used to be: “I’m dancing on my own grave.” He spends the final minutes of this tender, lovely tune listing off things he used to be, and I nearly teared up hearing things like “endless potential” and “the man in the mirror” among them. It’s clear-eyed and unblinking, and one of Folds’ very best songs, driven to the stratosphere by yMusic’s fantastic embellishments.

After half an hour of pain and bile, the concerto comes as a welcome burst of optimistic energy. It’s a grand piece of work, as one might expect, Folds throwing in every full-orchestra idea he has. There’s nothing particularly subtle about it – it’s bold, filmic music – but it’s unfailingly interesting and sweeping. The first (and longest) movement is my favorite for its constantly shifting, almost cartoonish tone, but it all works. The Nashville Symphony Orchestra is, of course, terrific, and anyone still questioning whether Folds is one of the best pianists in rock music should find plenty of evidence here.

And I’m very glad the concerto is here. The bitter tone and failed humor of So There threaten to drag it down, but with a full third of the album taken up with this sparkling piece, it ends up passing muster. It’s not his best work, and I’m still not sure it was worth putting Ben Folds Five to rest again, but the good outweighs the bad. I’m worried about Folds’ mental state, and I hope by his next outing he’ll have worked out some of these feelings of spite, because while they may be honest, they’re the worst things about So There, and when they’re tempered and softened, the album shines.

* * * * *

I’ve been a Ben Folds fan since his first record, so I didn’t need any encouragement to check out his orchestral album. But apparently I did need some convincing to try The Dear Hunter – I’ve had most of their records for years, and never heard them.

This happens more than I’d like. I hear about something that I want to check out, I buy it, it gets buried in the stack of new stuff and I don’t get to it for a long time. Meanwhile, more albums by this band come out, and because I am a ridiculous completist, I buy those too. Finally, years down the line, I listen to the whole stack of CDs, and quite often I kick myself for not experiencing them sooner. I don’t know why I do this, and if I could be a music obsessive full time, I probably wouldn’t have to. This is my life.

Anyway, I told you all that to tell you this: I’ve had the majority of the Dear Hunter’s catalog for years now, and I only listened to it all last week, in a marathon session. That’s all it took to catapult them into my list of favorite artists. I’m still in the process of fully absorbing their latest, but I’m positively salivating for anything they do next.

The Dear Hunter is the project of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Casey Crescenzo. A mere 31 years old, Crescenzo has already created a body of work with more breadth and ambition than most artists even attempt. The main thrust of that work is a massive story in song, told over a planned six albums, each called acts. Even on the debut EP, Act I: The Lake South, the River North, Crescenzo was painting with a wide palette, working orchestral flourishes into his driving indie rock, and his vision has only grown. Act II and Act III were bigger and better, showing a true commitment to creating the most extraordinary music of which he was capable.

I don’t want to get too far into the weeds by summarizing the story Crescenzo is telling. In short, it seems to be about loss of innocence and the unfortunate path of vengeance, from the point of view of a character who makes one terrible decision after another. He’s the son of a prostitute who fled the big city to raise him by the lake and the river, but his mother’s past caught up with her and she was killed, leaving him to seek revenge. Along the way, he falls in and out of love with a prostitute in the city, then goes off to fight in World War I, meeting his half-brother, who dies in battle. Our hero (and I use the term loosely) takes his half-brother’s identity, killing the boy’s father in the process, as Act III: Life and Death ends.

And that’s where Crescenzo left it for six years. Perhaps knowing that Act IV would require a more diverse compositional skill set, he took on The Color Spectrum, a series of nine EPs each representing (yes) a color of the spectrum. This project proved revelatory, as Crescenzo dove into different styles and different shades throughout its 36 songs, none of which sound like much on Acts I-III. He followed this up with a terrific pop album called Migrant, proving he was adept at writing shorter, unconnected songs. (Seriously, Migrant is really good.)

And then he went and made a goddamn symphony, called Amour and Attrition, recording it with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra in the Czech Republic. And it’s a fine piece, showing that Crescenzo knows his way around an orchestra and can write with dynamics and grace. Amour and Attrition feels now like the last necessary step on the road to Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise, the most striking, diverse, ambitious and orchestral of the four acts. It’s a great record anyway, but if you’ve heard the first three acts and can recognize the themes running through this story, it’ll knock you out.

As I said before, I’m still fully absorbing this thing, and I don’t have a full handle on it yet. Crescenzo’s lyrics are often vague and poetic, and gleaning plot details from them is a delicious challenge. From what I have gathered, the story of Act IV opens with our hero living his half-brother’s life, complete with mother and fiancée. The mother dies, and our hero, lost and confused, heads back into the city, cheats on his lover (with, I suspect, the prostitute from Act II), and hatches a scheme to finally dispatch the villain of the piece, the one who killed his own mother.

He uses dirty tricks and tactics to win a city-wide election, tactics which cost him his lover, and plans to expose the villain’s double life – he’s a priest by day and secretly a pimp by night, running both the church and the Dime, the city’s brothel. But before he can, he’s hoist by his own petard – the priest confronts him and threatens to expose his own lie. It ends with a song called “Ouroboros,” the snake eating its own tail, lies weaving around lies, leaving nothing changed. Our hero has become the very thing he hated: a two-faced power-hungry liar. Pretty dark, and I can’t imagine that Acts V and VI will get any brighter.

If this sounds like a slog, well, you haven’t heard it. The music on Act IV is vibrant, constantly shifting and often quite beautiful. Crescenzo’s time writing shorter pop tunes and symphonies has paid off – after the traditional a cappella opening (there’s a Greek chorus narrating much of this, a further clue that we’re listening to a tragedy), “Rebirth” explodes in a flurry of strings and horns, and they stay for much of the record. But the songs themselves are often the most concise and sweeping of the Dear Hunter’s catalog. “Waves,” the first single, is a good example – it moves and breathes like a pop song, but with the breadth of an overture. “The Squeaky Wheel” hints at ELO, and “Remembered” is a gorgeous piece of chamber-pop, a stunning, string-laden ballad that lasts all of 3:50, and ends with a tremendous callback to the very first act.

With all that, you’d expect the longer songs here to be even more full-to-bursting, and you’d be right. The nine-minute “A Night on the Town,” in many ways the centerpiece here, is amazing, galloping in on a hundred horns and a shout-along chorus, then shifting and morphing into entirely new forms, often with oboes. And we get a further three movements of “The Bitter Suite,” comprising 11 minutes and detailing the hero’s examination of religion in the city. When it becomes clear why these songs are continuations of the original three “Bitter Suite” movements on Act II, it’s like a gut punch.

All that said, the final third of the record manages to go a few more uncharted places. “King of Swords (Reversed)” and “If All Goes Well,” the chapters relating to the election, are remarkably danceable, Crescenzo bringing in electronic beats and synth burbles to surprisingly great effect. The final tracks are dark and powerful, particularly “Wait,” which finds our hero hoping there isn’t a heaven to judge him for his deeds. But they don’t build to a conclusion – Crescenzo decides to end “Ouroboros” almost in mid-phrase, a clear musical cliffhanger. But that’s great, because it means he’s going to give us more, and hopefully soon.

Yes, I’m kicking myself for not listening to The Dear Hunter earlier. For one thing, this is a lot of music to process all at once. Hell, just the 73 minutes of Act IV are a lot to absorb. A couple things are pretty obvious, though – Casey Crescenzo is quite a talent, and Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise is one of the best and grandest albums of the year. I’ll be listening from now on.

Next week, Slayer, Duran Duran, David Gilmour and maybe one or two others. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Last week I talked about a couple bands I’ve been following for seven years. This week I’d like to talk about one I’ve been following for most of my life.

I honestly can’t tell you the first Iron Maiden song I heard. It was in the throes of my teenage metalhead years, and if you had teenage metalhead years, you know they’re the perfect time to be introduced to a band as grandiose and theatrical as Maiden. This is a band always trying to be bigger than everyone else, go further over the top, and when you’re 14, that resonates pretty powerfully. (It’s no secret that Queen was my favorite band in high school.) Maiden came along around the same time as Metallica and Megadeth and Anthrax for me, and I only learned later that Maiden actually influenced them all.

I’m fairly sure the first Iron Maiden album I saw was Powerslave, and I am completely sure that I saw Powerslave before I heard it. I’ve always been into the physical objects, the packaging and artwork that feels as much a part of an album as the music to me. The Powerslave artwork is absolutely fantastic, recasting the Maiden mascot, ol’ demon-faced Eddie, as a Sphinx-like statue in front of a tomb in ancient Egypt. In its full form, adorning the front of the vinyl record, it’s an incredible piece of work – there are so many little details in it that you could stare at it for hours and not pick them all up.

I remember gazing at it pretty intently, imagining the music etched into the grooves of the record, and wondering if it could be as grand as the painting. If you’ve heard Powerslave, you know it contains “Aces High” and “Two Minutes to Midnight” and the title track and the 13-plus-minute epic “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” So the answer, obviously, was yes. But as I was 10 when Powerslave came out, I don’t think I heard it for several more years. I also remember staring at the fantastic, futuristic artwork for Somewhere in Time, which came out when I was 12. But again, I didn’t hear that one right away either.

No, the first Maiden album I heard was 1988’s amazing Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. It was the perfect first Maiden record for me at 14 years old. Not only was its theme vaguely occult, which thrilled the rebellious Christian boy I used to be, but its music was sweeping and full of keyboards, which were important to me then, for some reason. This was unlike anything I had ever heard. (Well, that’s not entirely true – I was also taken with Barren Cross, the Christian Iron Maiden, at roughly the same time.) I wanted every Iron Maiden album then, but especially the two I’d spent so much time staring at.

I haven’t really looked back since. I bought No Prayer for the Dying and Fear of the Dark when they came out (on cassette!). I picked up The X Factor even though I knew Bruce Dickinson, owner of perhaps the best voice in metal, had been replaced by some imitator named Blaze Bayley. I bought Dickinson’s solo albums and enjoyed them immensely. Sometime in the late ‘90s, while I was working at Face Magazine, I convinced EMI Records to send me a complete set of the remastered Maiden albums on CD – from the self-titled debut to Live at Donnington, with spines that form the face of Eddie when all lined up.

And I freaked out, in a good way, when the band reunited with Dickinson in 2000 for the incredible Brave New World. That album – expansive and progressive, sweeping and ethereal – sparked a surprise third act in the Iron Maiden story that is still going strong today. I’m struggling to think of any band enjoying a late-career renaissance as consistent as Maiden’s. The four (now five) lengthy albums the band has produced since reuniting not only stand proudly with their best work, they often surpass it, reaching new heights. Their most recent, 2010’s The Final Frontier, contains a couple tracks, most notably the 11-minute “Where the Wild Wind Blows,” that I would rank among their finest.

Their latest, The Book of Souls, is their 16th overall, and – amazingly – their first double album. It clocks in at 92 minutes, with 42 of those minutes taken up by three epic songs. It’s their most ambitious effort, and best of all, at no point does it sound like the median age of its authors is 58. It’s an intense, purely Iron Maiden experience – there is no other band on the planet who would make an album like this one.

I definitely mean that as a compliment, but it’s also indicative of the style the band works in, and how far that sound has fallen out of favor. Symphonic metal bands are still around – Dream Theater is another old workhorse that takes a lot from Maiden, and bands like Symphony X and Vanden Plas that certainly claim an influence. But it’s a sound that has dropped out of the public consciousness to a vast degree, and I absolutely understand why. Maiden works in a particular form of straightforward theatricality – it’s not sincere, but it never winks. That worked well in the ‘80s, but I’m not sure modern audiences know quite what to do with it, and if you’re not used to it, it can come off as a little silly.

I still love it, though. The Book of Souls is prime Iron Maiden, intricate and cinematic and a little cheesy, but totally awesome. If you can handle the eight-minute opener, “If Eternity Should Fail,” you’ll understand what you’re in for – it starts with a synthesizer soundscape that feels like incidental music to a made-for-TV movie about ancient Egypt, before Dickinson unveils his still-stunning voice, proclaiming, “Here is the soul of a man.” It then opens up into a classic Maiden rhythm, with intertwined harmony guitars, and flows into a strong chorus (sung magnificently by Dickinson), a double-time instrumental section giving space for all of the band’s three (!) guitar players, and finally a goofy/creepy spoken word coda: “Good day, my name is Necropolis, I am formed of the dead, I am the harvester of the soul meat…”

If you make it through that without giggling, you’re gonna love the rest. The most striking thing about The Book of Souls is how raw it sounds – quite a lot of the record sounds like they set up six microphones and just played. First single “Speed of Light” is the kind of simple five-minute rocker Maiden likes to work up to balance off their proggier tendencies, and it charges forward like a horse on fire. The 13-minute “The Red and the Black” slightly overdramatizes its tale of gambling for one’s soul, but around the halfway point it erupts into an extended instrumental workout, as intricately composed as it is loose and energetic. The title track is similarly fantastic, Steve Harris’ synthesizers adding depth and drama.

The second disc is a bit more finely considered, except for its opener, the raging “Death or Glory.” It turns out to be the record’s last powerhouse stomper – three mid-tempo winners, including the Robin Williams eulogy “Tears of a Clown,” provide a solid pathway to the album’s biggest and best surprise. That’s the closing song, “Empire of the Clouds” – it’s 18 minutes long, making it the band’s longest ever, and it’s based around Dickinson’s fragile piano playing. Don’t worry, it definitely gets huge, but hearing a Maiden song where the primary instrument is piano is a striking experience.

“Empire of the Clouds” tells the tale of the R101, a British airship that crashed in France in 1929 on its maiden voyage, killing nearly everyone aboard. As you can imagine, this is a perfect Iron Maiden subject, falling right in line with other historical epics like “Alexander the Great” and “Paschendale,” and they knock it out of the park. The song takes its time, reveling in the majesty of the great ship and describing its fall in agonizing detail. This is a song that no other band would do, and if this ends up being the final Iron Maiden album, it’s a hell of a great way to go out.

I mention finality because it’s always a possibility with bands that have been around as long as Maiden has, but also because The Book of Souls comes with its own scary story – it was completed almost a year ago, and its release delayed when Dickinson was diagnosed with tongue cancer. He’s undergoing treatment, but will tour this record next year. As with any great renaissance, you never know how long it’s going to last, and if the Maiden men decide to hang it up after this, I wouldn’t blame them.

And yet, there really is no other band like them, so it would be an unspeakable shame to see them go. The Book of Souls clearly demonstrates that Maiden is at the peak of their powers right now, still finding new avenues to take this sound they created. It’s still a big, goofy, powerful, dramatic, overtly theatrical sound, and I still love it as much as I did when I was that 14-year-old kid staring at their album covers. They’ve been a band for 40 years now – nearly as long as I have been alive – and they just keep getting more awesome. Long live Iron Maiden. Long may they reign.

Next week, orchestral efforts from Ben Folds and the Dear Hunter. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

September already?

I work at a particle physics laboratory where we delve deeply into the mysteries of space and time, so I know that the theory that time speeds up as you get older is false. Time moves at the same rate, which is why we call it time. But damn, it certainly feels like the days are zipping past more quickly, the months blending into one another, the years barely distinguishable. I feel like I’m constantly celebrating the 10th, 20th or even 30th anniversaries of things I remember like they happened yesterday. (Are we really about to get a 20th anniversary edition of Jagged Little Pill? Really?)

I’m 41 now. I promised myself decades ago that I wouldn’t turn into one of those old guys who thinks that music peaked the year he graduated high school. I wanted to be constantly seeking out new sounds, new artists, new expressions. I think I’ve done OK, even though my favorite artists still tend to be the ones with extensive catalogs, ones I have grown with over the years. As much as I enjoy hearing a good debut album, I like them mainly for the potential they represent, the idea that someday, this band may put out a fourth or fifth album, and that one’s probably going to blow me away.

Both of the records I have on tap this week come from bands I tried on a whim in 2008, spurred on by good reviews, and have watched evolve over the past seven years. I’m happy with the way both of them have grown – these new ones might be career-best in both cases – and overjoyed that I took a chance on them seven years ago. Results like this embolden me to take more such chances, try more bands and artists I might be hesitant on. I’m hopefully never going to shovel out Pitchfork-levels of new-band hype in this space, but at least in these two cases, the leaps of faith have been justified.

I can’t quite remember why I bought Antidotes, the first album from Oxford’s Foals, but even now I think it’s one of the brattiest math-rock albums ever. It’s intricate, like a puzzle that keeps solving itself, and yet danceable, lead throat Yannis Philippakis (then just 21) pushing things along with his barking, Isaac Brock-esque voice. I think Antidotes is great. I also think it’s fascinating and commendable that the band has never made another record like it. That willingness to experiment is risky, but it’s paid dividends.

Two years ago, I criticized the band for heading in a more accessible dance-rock direction with Holy Fire – much of it sounds like a tribute to modern Modest Mouse. But now that the fourth Foals platter, What Went Down, is here, it’s clear that their previous effort was just a way station on the road they’ve been traveling. Holy Fire scrapped one of the band’s key elements – the sense that each band member was contributing a different interlocking piece that only made sense as a whole – in favor of more straightforward rhythmic foundations. What Went Down does the same thing, but proceeds to build massive, gleaming towers on those foundations.

If you don’t know what I mean, just listen to the title track, which opens the album. There’s nothing immediately intricate about it – the drums pound in 4/4, the bass line throbs, the guitars land on the beats, and Philippakis sings a simple melody with passion. But just listen to how the band builds the song up higher and higher, crashing into that fantastic middle section about three minutes in, breaking it down, and then going even bigger. There’s an intensity to this song that Foals have never injected into their material before – by the end, it’s almost unbearable, and you have to move or do something or you’ll scream. And then the last 30 seconds lets you do just that.

In so many ways, What Went Down sounds like the work of a different band than the one that made Antidotes. Foals have always been more interested in sound than song, in creating interesting sonic sculptures than writing indelible melodies, and while this new album doesn’t flip that script, the 10 songs here are more interesting and memorable. “Mountain at My Gates” is a proper single, one that feels like an honest effort, in contrast to their last stab at radio, “My Number.” It’s obvious in every song here that the band rallied and focused for this one, and the result is simultaneously their most succinct and most ambitious statement.

In short, Foals have grown up here, and they’ve left their brattiness behind. Nothing on What Went Down is brash – it’s all well-considered, strong material. “Birch Tree” is the perfect adult Foals song, its shimmering guitars and gliding chorus almost sounding smooth. “Give It All” is a low-key, subtle bit of hopeful melancholy, with glittering keyboards and a “woo-oo” for the ages. “Night Swimmers” is a delightful update of the band’s old vibe, the only time on the record that the bass and drums do that nimble little dance, but this one is fully written, the groove underpinning a solid song. And epic closer “A Knife in the Ocean” earns all of its seven minutes, finally blossoming into a massive and powerful finale.

I wasn’t sure what to expect after Holy Fire, but with What Went Down, Foals have crafted their best record. They did so not by ignoring the pathways they’d previously taken, even the ones that led to dead ends, but by learning from them and building on them. This album shows a true evolution, and marks a coming of age – they started as a bunch of cocky kids, but What Went Down is the first album they’ve made that can truly be called confident. It’s been a treat to watch them find their way here, and it’s even more of a treat to see them arrive.

I’ve been following Beach House for just as long, but their evolution has been much more subtle. The first Beach House album I bought was their second, 2008’s Devotion, and the main elements were already in place – droning keyboards, pitter-patter electronic drums and Victoria Legrand’s lush, haunting voice. Seven years later, those are still the main ingredients, but they’ve learned to cook more interesting dishes with them. Still, everything they’ve done sounds unmistakably like Beach House.

The duo’s fifth album, Depression Cherry, also sounds like Beach House, but this time, there’s a larger helping of classic shoegaze here – this record sounds gauzier, farther away, more mesmerizing than the comparatively pop leanings of their last effort, the glorious Bloom. The first single, “Sparks,” is the one most obviously inspired by the likes of Slowdive and the Cocteau Twins – Alex Scally’s fuzzy guitar is slathered all over Legrand’s thick organ chords, and her harmonized vocals sound like she sung them down an echo-filled hall from the microphone. It could not sound more like ‘90s shoegaze if Kevin Shields produced it.

The rest of the album doesn’t quite follow suit, but there is a definite focus here on that cavernous sound. As a consequence, while these songs are fine, they’re not as memorable as those on Bloom and Teen Dream – this album is more concerned with mood than melody. That’s not to say there aren’t gems here, particularly the stunning six-minute “PPP” and the delicate “Bluebird.” But Depression Cherry is designed to be taken as a whole, and that whole blurs together into one long, sustained note.

What keeps this record afloat, as always, is Legrand’s voice. She layers it, then sings around those layers, covering the tracks like a warm blanket. On the relatively sparse “10:37” she sounds a lot like Enya, another rich-voiced singer who has mastered the art of the multi-track, and when the arrangements get bigger, like on “Wildflower,” she matches them with lovely, finely sculpted vocal webs. Closer “Days of Candy” starts with a hundred Legrands harmonizing like a choir, providing a supple bed for her shining-light lead vocal. It’s the darkest and dreariest song here, sending Depression Cherry out on a note befitting its title. But Legrand is captivating throughout.

For those who have been following along, this album is a surprising turn away from the bright shimmers of the last few Beach House efforts. (It even comes packaged in a cherry-red felt-like material, further setting it apart.) The essence of the band remains at its center, but they’re looking at that essence in new ways here, refining their sound and taking it places they’ve never been. As the next step along their path, it’s a strange choice. But as a Beach House album, it works very well, and I’m interested to see where they go after this.

Next week, Iron Maiden. IRON MAIDEN. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.