A month ago I gave Beach House’s fifth album, Depression Cherry, a reservedly positive review.

I think it’s a fine record, in many ways their tribute to old-school shoegaze, all blurred-out and indistinct. While it was still definitely a Beach House album, it represented a strange left turn for them, and the record suffered a bit – the focus was on mood, not melody, and over 45 minutes, it felt like a single hazy song that didn’t quite go anywhere. I wondered then where all the winsome, pretty songs they must have written alongside these went to.

And now I know: they’re on the duo’s sixth record, the lovely Thank Your Lucky Stars, a surprise release mere weeks after its predecessor. Victoria Legrand and Alex Scully are adamant that this is not the second half of a double album, nor is it a companion piece – it’s a separate album, with its own feel and identity. And while they’re right – this is certainly its own thing, and bears very little resemblance to Depression Cherry – its existence can’t help but add context to the 86 minutes of music Beach House has given us this fall.

If you, too, thought that Depression Cherry didn’t sound as much like Beach House as you would have liked, you should run out and buy this new album as soon as you can. Where Cherry took its time, its dark and suffocating songs stretching past five and six minutes, Lucky Stars feels light and airy, full of four-minute marvels with delightful tunes. Even though the records are a similar length, Lucky Stars feels smaller, faster, more compact. Its songs feel like prime Beach House, Scally’s guitar and keyboard flourishes adding texture to the band’s usual organ-and-electronic-drums formula. But more than anything else, it’s the pop half of the dream-pop style that sets this album apart. These are lovely little pop songs, with a movement and a sweep missing from Cherry.

In fact, this album feels like the proper successor to Bloom, building on the dreamy sound of that record. The opening trilogy is among this band’s best work, from the blissful, chiming guitars of “Majorette” to the smoky nightclub drawl of “She’s So Lovely” (with its ascending guitar melody ending in an uncertain bit of dissonance, as if the band doesn’t want to reach the summit), to the Cure-esque overtones of the awesome “All Your Yeahs.” There’s a strong sense of nostalgia to songs like the lilting “Common Girl” and the ‘50s-balladry-meets-Cocteau-Twins closer “Somewhere Tonight.” Through all of this, the haunting voice of Victoria Legrand floats like a specter, there and not there, adding new dimensions just by existing. That these songs give Legrand something to sing, as opposed to most of the ones on Cherry, is only for the better.

I know the band would prefer that I don’t think of Cherry and Lucky Stars in relation to one another, but it’s impossible. The fact that Lucky Stars is so traditionally Beach House, such a consistent and winning example of how good their sound can be, means that they know that the songs on Cherry were a departure, and they grouped them accordingly. It also makes me wonder what they think of Cherry – is it an experiment that worked for them? Will they be returning to it? Or is Lucky Stars the way forward? It would be the safer path, certainly. I’d like to see them incorporate some of the moodiness of Cherry with the melodies of its successor – they came close on “Elegy to the Void,” the only song on Stars that breaks six minutes, but it moves and shimmies like nothing on the previous album.

But in case it isn’t obvious, I like Thank Your Lucky Stars a lot more, and if they chose to keep on sounding like this (which is pretty much deciding to sound like themselves), I’ll be happy. Beach House is at their best, I think, when their music bursts with dreamlike wonder, and they’re at that best on Thank Your Lucky Stars. Had this been the only album they released in 2015, I’d have been good with it. Think of Depression Cherry as a bonus. This is where the heart is.

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When she was 20 years old, Vanessa Carlton wrote a perfect pop song.

“A Thousand Miles” has that delirious mixture of youthful exuberance and beyond-her-years sophistication that makes it immortal. It’s so good that it even rises above the cluttered production it was saddled with on Carlton’s 2002 debut album, Be Not Nobody. (There isn’t much her producers could have done to ruin that song, to be fair.) It remains the song for which Carlton is known, a calling card so immense that it has overshadowed everything else she’s done.

And that’s a shame, because the rest of Carlton’s discography is well worth digging into. She’s a decent example of an artist hitting it big her first time out and not allowing that to change her. She’s fought against the kind of pop stardom one might expect after writing a song that takes the world by storm, and she’s rarely tried to write another one like it. It’s been a while, in fact, since Carlton has written anything radio might play. Her last record, 2011’s Rabbits on the Run, was a quiet and gentle affair, and her new one, Liberman, is even more so.

Liberman is so quiet that it will take you a few listens to realize how pretty it is. It floated right by me at first, and I was convinced it was her least interesting record, the one on which her bent toward maturity yielded diminishing returns. Sometime during listen seven, though, the album started to click for me, morphing from static to meditative before my ears. The entire album is low-key and placid, its melodies hiding from view, needing to be teased out. Part of that is the hit-or-miss production – Carlton’s voice and piano are often submerged under layers of keyboards and reverb. But part of it is that Carlton has concentrated on writing simple little numbers about love and loss, and the record is small and slight on purpose.

But those songs are somewhat more dynamic than they first appear, particularly the flowing “Willow” and the sad “Nothing Where Something Used to Be.” Opener “Take it Easy” is a long, breathy sigh that sets the tone, while “Operator” (co-written with her husband, John McCauley, of Deer Tick), pulses along nicely on a churning bass line. “Matter of Time” is a wistful folk song that leads into mini-epic “Unlock the Lock,” with its insistent strings. Things end quietly, because of course they do – “River” glides in on chiming electric guitar and builds to a sweet chorus, while the brief “Ascension” is more like a coda than a real song.

Nothing on Liberman is earth-shattering, or even revelatory. It’s a quiet hymn of a record, one that took me a while to like. What helped more than anything is Liberman’s second disc, which includes stripped-bare versions of seven of its numbers, just Carlton and her piano. These versions helped me find the melodies in these songs, and left me with the feeling that even the muted production on the album proper might be too much. (The piano version of “River” is three times as beautiful as the album version, for instance.) Next time, Carlton should go the whole way and record an album like this. Liberman is good, but its songs are even better, and Carlton should have this much faith in them.

Carlton’s recent work is a thousand miles from the music she’s best known for, but it’s often quite lovely stuff, and should be heard. While I sometimes wish she would find a bit of that old anything-can-happen fire, I’m impressed and elated that she’s managed to do whatever she wants for her entire career. Liberman is absolutely the work of an artist beholden to no one, a quiet celebration of complete freedom. Despite several reasons not to, I’ve grown to like it quite a bit.

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Speaking of quiet hymns, there’s the Innocence Mission.

I first heard the Innocence Mission in the ‘90s thanks to my friend Chris L’Etoile, who is always ten curves ahead of me. Since 1989, married couple Karen and Don Peris have been making fragile, wonderful music. Their earliest efforts were akin to the Sundays, but since 1999’s Birds of My Neighborhood, they’ve been playing delicate acoustic folk, the kind you might hear if you came round their house for a backyard singalong around the fire. They’ve been doing this so beautifully for so long that it’s almost easy to forget how good they are.

Their eleventh album, Hello I Feel the Same, keeps the streak going. It’s another short and sweet collection of tiny songs of uncommon beauty. The foundation is Don’s nimbly picked guitar and Karen’s lilting, unearthly voice, with occasional drums, upright bass and organ, but nothing obtrusive. Arrangements are kept at their sparsest, letting the natural grace of the songs shine brightly. Everything here is simple and warm, from the instant connection of the title track to the bittersweet lullaby of “State Park” to the grateful closer “The Color Green.” No bitterness, no regret, only kindness and fondness and simple joy, if tinged with nostalgic sadness.

Yes, it’s another Innocence Mission album, offering the same delights as the other ten. But I don’t mind at all. The music Karen and Don Peris make, particularly lately, is almost too beautiful for words, and I’m happy to just put this album on repeat and sink into it. Hello I Feel the Same is another gorgeous, quiet triumph, and it leaves me wanting nothing.

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I took the title of this week’s column from a Cowboy Junkies song, and while they don’t have anything new to review, they did issue a box set with the same title this week. It includes their albums Open, One Soul Now and At the End of Paths Taken in remastered form, along with a fourth disc of freshly recorded songs written during those sessions. I’ve been really lax in reviewing Cowboy Junkes albums (I didn’t write up any of the Nomad Series, to my shame), so I’ll put in a good word for this set. If you like dark music that takes it slow, you’ll love all of this.

Next week, Celldweller’s epic End of an Empire. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Nine years ago, Joanna Newsom released a record called Ys, and I proclaimed it the best album of 2006.

I’ve never regretted that decision. Some people thought I was kidding – that my lauding of this thoroughly out-there harp-driven fairy-tale fantasia sung by what sounds like a drunken 10-year-old must be a massive put-on. But I wasn’t joking, and I haven’t been joking since. Joanna Newsom is one of the most fascinating and singular artists to emerge in the last 15 years, and any time she has something to say, I’m happy to listen.

I absolutely get where her detractors are coming from, though. Newsom has a tendency toward the precious, and inhabits a whimsical lyrical universe all her own. She plays the harp, and writes songs with all the complexity of classical arias. And then there is that voice, which many cannot get past. I’ve grown to love it in all its cracked and loopy beauty, but it took me a while. Newsom is content to circle around the note she wants, wavering and breaking, if she’s conveying the right emotion. It’s an acquired taste, and at this point, I have well and truly acquired it.

Still, it’s an obstacle for many, so I can’t be too upset that Newsom’s genius remains a slightly less than universally accepted truth. It’s not easy for some of Newsom’s fans – my friend Mike sent me this bizarre article that paints every man who dislikes Newsom’s voice as a sexist who doesn’t want women to have nice things. While there is a great deal of sexism in music and music criticism, this feels like an overreaction to me. There’s no shame in saying that Newsom makes challenging, fascinating music that is simply not for everyone.

But my God, is it for me. Newsom’s fourth album, Divers, is out this week, and within 90 seconds of pressing play, I was in bliss. I’ve waited five years for these 52 minutes, and I was prepared to be underwhelmed. After the full-orchestra wonder of Ys and the grandeur of 2010’s triple album Have One on Me, Newsom’s just made a collection of 11 songs this time, some alone and some with a variety of collaborators. It may feel slight upon first glance, but Divers is phenomenal, a summation and a refinement of everything I love about Newsom.

Best of all, it’s a statement of confidence and comfort in what she does. There’s no attempt to ease you in, no stab at a pop song or an accessible number that you won’t have to listen to three times to fully comprehend. There’s just enough complexity to Divers, and just enough simplicity to leaven the mix. These songs are grand and wide, and Newsom works in a cornucopia of colors here. Everything sounds like her, but there are surprises in every track, and a sure-footedness that leaves me in awe. Newsom sounds like no one else on earth here, and she grasps her own uniqueness and enjoys it.

If you’ve heard the single, the dense and tricky “Sapokanikan,” you know another piece of good news: while Newsom smoothed out her voice for Have One on Me, seemingly taming it for mass acceptance, she’s returned to her natural sound here, once again enlisting Steve Albini to record it as it happens and leave all the wavery notes in. And man, I missed it. Listen to how she chews on the line “I believed our peril was done” at the start of “Waltz of the 101st Lightborne.” That’s Joanna Newsom. It’s so wonderful to hear her embrace that unusual voice again.

Divers finds Newsom alternating between telling stories and baring her soul. Widescreen opener “Anecdotes” is as impenetrable a narrative as she has ever offered: “We signal Private Poorwill when morning starts to loom, pull up from your dive, till we hear the telltale boom too soon, hotdogging loon, caught there like a shard of mirror in the moon…” The music is utterly stunning, particularly the back half, and Newsom’s string arrangements pristine. “Sapokanikan,” named after one of the few villages on Manhattan Island that predates European settlers, is a dark fable, its lyrics contrasting with Newsom’s sing-song melody. Like “Anecdotes,” this song unfolds in its second half, Newsom harmonizing with herself as the music rises and rises.

But she gets nakedly emotional in the album’s second act. Sparse lament “The Things I Say” spins out on a web of mournful harp notes: “If I have the space of half a day, I’m ashamed of half the things I say, I’m ashamed to have turned out this way and I desire to make amends…” The seven-minute title track is a glorious intertwining of harp and piano, both by Newsom, supporting one of her very best tunes. “I’ll hunt the pearl of death to the bottom of my life, and ever hold my breath till I may be the diver’s wife,” she sings. In the midst of these sweeping pieces, she offers some simpler folk numbers, like the down-home “Same Old Man” and the almost-bluesy “Goose Eggs.”

For my money, though, it’s the home stretch that contains Divers’ best songs. “You Will Not Take My Heart Alive” is a beautiful bit of defiance, Newsom’s harp dancing off of her Mellotron flourishes, her voice swooping up and floating back down like a feather. “A Pin-Light Bent” is the only song featuring just harp and vocals, and it’s a dark yet whimsical journey: “My life came and went, short flight, free descent, poor flight attendant…” And the extraordinary closer “Time, As a Symptom” is a slow and stunning crescendo, building (with the help of the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra) to joyous levels. Newsom takes death head on in this song, sweeping aside the sorrow of the previous numbers in favor of the unbowed and the unbroken: “Love is not a symptom of time, time is just a symptom of love, and of the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating joy of life…”

Those 14 minutes, from “You Will Not Take My Heart” to “Time,” are almost unbearably emotional, and among the finest 14 minutes of the year. That’s not to discount the other pleasures of Divers, certainly, but my heart belongs to those final three songs. They send this fine, fine record out on the highest of high notes, and have all but secured it a place among my very favorites of 2015. Joanna Newsom is a singular artist with a singular vision, working on a canvas all her own, creating achingly beautiful and utterly magical work. I know it’s not for everyone, but I feel bad for those who can’t feel what she’s doing here, can’t revel in the fact that such wonder exists. I wasn’t kidding in 2006, and I’m not kidding now. Joanna Newsom is amazing.

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Speaking of women with unique voices, I finally heard Bjork’s Vulnicura.

Yes, I know. Yes, it came out in January. Yes, I bought it then. (Well, actually, in March when the physical CD was released.) No, I didn’t listen to it then. It has been sitting in a pretty large pile of 2015 albums I still haven’t heard. No, there’s no reason for it. I just didn’t get to it until now.

And yes, everything you’ve heard is true. The record is a heartbreaker. Detailing the Icelandic songstress’ recent wrenching breakup, even to the point of setting certain songs weeks before or after said breakup, the record is easily the most emotionally potent thing Bjork has released in many years. It also heralds a return to her Homogenic sound, marrying electronic beats and whirrs to full string arrangements. Many moments here are almost physically beautiful, taking shape in the room and changing the feel of the air.

Some parts of Vulnicura are almost too intimate, particularly “History of Touches,” which details her last night with her lover, and “Black Lake,” which finds her almost on the edge of suicide. So much of it is so painful that when she sings “love will keep us safe from death” on “Notget,” you know she truly means it. After three albums full of abstractions, Vulnicura is almost too real, too straightforward. It’s a powerful piece of work, and I wish I had heard it before now.

Vulnicura is also vying for a spot on my top 10 list now. There isn’t much coming out in the next two months that will likely challenge what we already have. (I would have considered Mutemath’s Vitals a contender, before hearing four middling songs from it.) Chances are I’ve heard my 10 favorites at this point, but my mind remains open. We shall see.

Next week, slow tunes from Beach House, Vanessa Carlton and the Innocence Mission. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I don’t dance.

Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I should say I don’t dance in public. At home, with the curtains drawn and the music blasting, is another matter entirely. But as far as anyone else knows, I don’t dance, so I’m sticking with that. There’s a self-consciousness at work there that I would love to get over – I have friends who dance in public all the time, and it looks like fun. But based on the few times I’ve rhythmically lurched about in the company of others, I can safely say no one wants to see that.

I react to music bodily, though, and there’s no getting around it. Put on a good beat, and despite my resistance, I am moving to it. I love music that makes me want to dance. The best is music that makes me flit around the room uncontrollably, playing air drums and air guitar and lip-syncing wildly. (Those who know me well are nodding right now.) While I didn’t hear any of that this week, most of the records I have on tap were designed with dancing in mind, and I won’t lie, I did feel the urge to move once or twice.

Of course, if you don’t dance a little while listening to a !!! album, the band has thoroughly failed. Nic Offer’s outfit has been at the dance-pop thing for almost 20 years, and if they don’t have it down by now, something’s wrong. That’s not to say they haven’t been evolving – they started out as a loud, jammy guitar band, extending some of their songs out to 10 minutes or more of slamming six-string disco grooves. Six albums in, they’ve just about entirely eradicated all of the basement punk from their sound.

On their sixth, As If, Offer and company give us their most straightforward dance record yet. It’s their airiest and most electronic, and the furthest they have stepped away from their roots. In fact, if you’re a longtime fan of this band, the first four tracks may give you the impression that you’ve put in the wrong disc. Three of those songs are sparse, synthetic dance tracks, culminating with the positively killer six-minute “Freedom! ’15,” with its super-funky basslines and James Brown-esque chorus. (“How’s that working for you, baby?”) Sandwiched in the middle is “Every Little Bit Counts,” a sunny lite-funk pop song that is unlike anything this band has done, and not necessarily in a good way.

The record goes on like this, with many of its admittedly kickass grooves supporting half-formed songs – the whole thing is a beat in search of anything to hang it on, as evidenced by the not-quite-finished “All the Way.” There’s a slinky synth part, some slippery electric piano, a four-on-the-floor beat and bass line, and… well, not much else for four minutes. If what you want is a deep groove, you got it. And if that does it for you, so will much of As If. It’s a patchy record – for every “All the Way” there’s a terrific little tune like “’Til the Money Runs Out” – but it never fails to bring the beat.

That patchiness remains, though, all the way through to the end, an eight-minute mess called “I Feel So Free (Citation Needed).” It’s the same organ motif, the same click-clack beat, with a heavily modulated Offer rambling over it for what feels like a year. I expect this was fun to make, and if you’re listening to a band that uses three exclamation points for its name (pronounced “chk chk chk”) for anything other than fun, you’re probably up the wrong tree. But the band’s last album, Thr!!!er, was solid and well-written, and As If is a definite step down. It’ll make you move, but it won’t make you want to listen again.

For repeat value, I’d recommend the second album by English duo Disclosure. (And, hell, the first one too.)

Howard and Guy Lawrence aren’t hoping to be the vanguard of modern dance music. They have a healthy respect for traditional, old-school club pop, and that respect is woven through every track of their excellent sophomore release, Caracal. It follows essentially the same pattern as Settle, their debut – simple, danceable songs sung by a number of guest stars, produced with a nostalgic edge. This time the brothers bring in The Weeknd, Lorde and Miguel, and bring back Sam Smith, who has rocketed to stardom since his work on Settle.

And like the best dance-pop records, it’s consistent despite the variety of lead vocalists. The identity belongs to the Lawrence brothers, no matter who is behind the mic. The lyrics are secondary things, just there to get those voices on the track. The Weeknd opens things with “Nocturnal,” a thick, dark song that sets a more obsidian mood for this record. The slightly darker atmosphere is the main difference between this record and the last one, but Caracal ends up being just as much fun. Lorde’s track, “Magnets,” is a mid-album highlight, as is “Jaded,” one of two songs sung by Howard Lawrence. There aren’t any weak spots on Caracal, though, so in a way, all the songs are highlights.

Closer “Masterpiece” is the only song here not fit for dancing. It’s a slow number, with Jordan Rakei’s haunting vocals floating above a wispy backing track, and it ends things on a note both somber and uplifting. It also drives home the fact that Caracal is an album, not just a collection of danceable singles. I’ve been impressed with this duo, and I’m pleased to see them getting more mainstream attention. Even if you don’t dance, Disclosure’s work is interesting and fun.

If dancing were on your mind, it would, admittedly, be harder to do that while listening to Battles. But I do think the New York outfit believes what they do is dance music. It just sounds like it’s from another planet.

The third Battles album, La Di Da Di, is their second as a trio following the departure of vocalist/guitarist Tyondi Braxton, and it’s their first to truly overcome his absence and deliver something excellent. It’s entirely instrumental, sounds largely performed live, and is a constantly unfolding chunk of jammy, proggy goodness. Songs like the awesome “FF Bada” are built on a foundation of kinetic drums and shifting bass, with guitars and keys locking in like puzzle pieces. it’s math-y, but always fun.

La Di Da Di sounds like a jam session that was very carefully thought out beforehand. The whole thing sounds spontaneous, in the best way, but with clear maps and blueprints. You might think that would get tiring over 50 minutes, but Battles keep things interesting all the way through. The closer, “Luu Le,” is one of the most interesting, flitting hither and yon on stuttering keyboards, martial drums and sleigh bells. As a trio, Battles will probably never pull off what they did as a quartet, but La Di Da Di finds them coming very close, and establishing a new template for this era of the band. Plus, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. It’s math rock that makes you dance, and if that sounds impossible, you should hear it. I dare you not to move.

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I’m calling this one early, since I’ve had a lot going on and I’m feeling under the weather. Next week, hopefully I will be back to my usual standard. I’ll be reviewing new things from Joanna Newsom, Vanessa Carlton and the Innocence Mission. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Four months ago, Frank Zappa’s Dance Me This was finally released.

Dance Me This was the final album Zappa completed before his death in 1993, and it’s been in the Zappa Family vault ever since, awaiting its moment in the sun. Its release in June made it the 100th new album to come out under Zappa’s name, and it was the perfect capper to more than 20 years of extraordinary vault releases – live shows from underrepresented lineups, audio documentaries on some of Frank’s earliest and best records, a completed guitar album called Trance-Fusion, and much more, all packaged with loving care. Combine those with a careful remaster and reissue campaign a couple years ago and the continued Zappa Plays Zappa tours, and I’d say Frank’s legacy has been in very good hands.

Since Frank’s death, those hands have belonged to his widow Gail, who runs the Zappa Family Trust with her children. And I have to wonder if Gail knew she was on death’s door when she gave us Dance Me This, if she knew it would be the last of Frank’s releases she would live to see. Gail Zappa (nee Sloatman) died on Oct. 7 following a long battle with lung cancer, and in that her legacy is interwoven with her husband’s, she leaves a very strong one. In fact, she’s not done – a longtime labor of love, Frank Zappa’s Roxy: The Movie, will be out at the end of the month, after years of work to complete and restore it.

Rest in peace, Gail, and thank you for keeping Frank’s music in the spotlight for all these years.

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If you’d conducted a poll in 1997, asking people to name the current pop star least likely to win a Tony award for best musical, I bet many would have said Duncan Sheik.

I probably would have voted for Sheik, too. Those who remember 1997 undoubtedly recall Sheik’s big hit, “Barely Breathing,” a middling pop trifle that is, to this day, the song he’s most known for. But he’s always been interested in grander things, and by sticking to his artistic guns, he’s managed to carve out two parallel careers. There’s an entire generation of theater kids who don’t even know that Duncan Sheik writes pop songs – they know him for his six (soon to be seven) musicals, and particularly Spring Awakening, the 2006 effort that won him and playwright Steven Sater eight Tony awards.

I suppose I could be upset that the soft-spoken Sheik has achieved success in two musical fields, and yet the fans of one have no idea about the other. (When I mentioned to my friends that I was excited for a new Duncan Sheik album, the majority of the responses I got were along the lines of, “He’s still alive?”) And yet, I find it pretty amusing. It’s like he’s a double agent, slipping back and forth between identities. The best thing about it, for my money, is that Sheik’s success in musical theater means there’s no pressure on him to deliver a hit pop record, so he can do whatever he wants.

Thankfully, Sheik has done whatever he wants for the vast majority of his career. He stopped chasing hits more than a decade ago, but let’s be honest – even his poppiest records, like 2002’s Daylight, are sophisticated affairs far beyond what you’d expect to hear on the radio. And albums like Phantom Moon and White Limousine are glorious, patient things, taking hold slowly and seeping under your skin. Legerdemain, Sheik’s first new record in six years, follows the same pattern – its songs are mainly low-key slow burners – while opening up new avenues of sound for him. It may be his best record, but then, they’re all pretty great.

Legerdemain is very long – 16 songs stretching over more than 70 minutes – but when a long album is as consistent as this one is, I don’t mind at all. Sheik’s songwriting is of the same high quality it always is, but this time, he’s cast it in a foundation of light electronica, accenting his folksy guitar with pitter-patter drums and lovely synth flourishes. It’s a new sound for him, one that he’s apparently been working on for his score to the American Psycho musical (out next year), and it fits what he does brilliantly.

The album front-loads its (relatively) uptempo songs, and opens with its angriest, “Selling Out.” Truth be told, Sheik doesn’t get angry very often – his velvety voice and penchant for moody, meditative tunes don’t lend themselves to rage. True to form, “Selling Out” is more clever than flat-out angry, but it does the trick: “You bought it all, even when I was selling out…” From there, though, Legerdemain concentrates on literate tales of love and loss and watching time go by. “Photograph” is probably the closest thing to a hit here, its throbbing beat and bass line bursting forth into a great chorus: “A moment now past, some beauty it had somehow still lasts, a photograph…”

The second half slows things down to tremendous effect. The dark “Brutalized,” complete with haunting trumpet from Jon Hassell, will stay with you like the best of Sheik’s more turbulent pieces. It’s followed directly by the album’s longest and best song, “Circling” – this six-minute wonder lives up to its name, built on an unfolding, hypnotic piano pattern. It takes its time, and deserves it. “Circling” sets the tone for the final third of the record, wafting out on hushed tones. “Summer Mourning” is a delicate winner, “No Happy End” brings Hassell back for another dark journey, and brief closer “So There” serves as a summation of the record’s prevailing mood and tone.

If you’ve lost track of Duncan Sheik, or forgotten that he’s still alive, Legerdemain is a good indicator of what you’ve missed. Sheik remains a terrific songwriter, in the same league as Nick Drake, and this new album paints his lovely songs in new colors. Like all of Sheik’s work, it’s simply delightful. There’s no one quite like him, and I’m grateful for such a generous helping of new material. I hope he wins another Tony next year, so he can continue to make whatever records he wants to make.

(As a quick coda, I wanted to mention that the cover of Legerdemain depicts Sheik’s silhouette in front of the CMS Detector, one of the big particle detectors on the Large Hadron Collider – and, coincidentally, the one my laboratory designed and built parts of and works closely with. This really means nothing, but I love it when my day job intersects with my hobby in fascinating ways.)

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Tori Amos has been making long albums for two decades now, despite the fact that her more concise efforts remain her more memorable ones. I used to look forward to new Amos albums like little else – even her b-sides used to be amazing – but 20 years of 70-plus-minute records that sport at least half a dozen more songs than are strictly necessary, I’m wary.

If you count it as a Tori album, the cast recording of her first musical, The Light Princess, is her longest studio effort. (Yes, like Sheik, Amos has decided to try her hand at musicals.) It will take you two hours to listen to this whole thing, to get through the surprisingly slight story of Princess Althea and Prince Digby and their respective kingdoms of Lagobel and Sealand. I’d be lying if I told you this would be two hours well spent.

I’m not sure why – I’m just programmed to be a Tori fan, I suppose – but I was looking forward to this. Amos spent six years working with well-known Australian playwright Samuel Adamson on this adaptation of George MacDonald’s fairy tale, and I was hopeful that after so much time refining it, the music of The Light Princess would thrill me. Here, I thought, would be all the sweeping melodies that have been missing from Amos’ work for years. Here would be all the magic and wonder of the original tale, in musical form. Surely. Surely.

Nope. The Light Princess is cluttered and earthbound, only occasionally stumbling upon a memorable passage and dispensing with it just as quickly. It opens with what feels like four hours of exposition, setting up the central plot with lots of yelping and speak-singing. The ten-minute “Queen Material” is a particular chore, drowning out the two interesting bits in the first hour – the central melody of “My Fairy Story” and the refrain of “My Own Land.” “My Fairy Story” is a Tori song through and through, but a latter-day one – it’s pretty, but doesn’t do much. But it will at least stick in your head a little bit. Whole songs in the first half, like “Highness in the Sky” and “Darkest Hour,” will pass by without leaving a mark. (The dreary “Althea,” meant to be a theme for the character, is especially dour and tuneless.)

The Light Princess is the story of Althea, a princess who loses her gravity when her mother dies, leaving her floating above the ground without a care. (During the play’s UK run, this was accomplished by employing teams of black-clad stunt actors to carry around actress Roaslie Craig, who – probably not coincidentally – looks like a young Amos.) Her kingdom of Lagobel is at war with its neighbor Sealand, and Sealand’s prince Digby has too much gravity – he’s solemn and serious all the time. You can probably see where this is going – the two meet, and after a series of circumstances, she gives him levity and he gives her gravity. And all is well, forever and ever.

The song in which that happens, “Gravity,” is the closest Amos comes to a breakout hit here, and it comes very near the end of the musical. But here’s the thing – “Gravity” is included here in a standalone version as a bonus track, because in the musical itself, it isn’t given the chance to shine. It’s cut off before it can truly take flight. It’s an unfortunate miscalculation, but one that makes sense with the rest of this meandering piece of work. Like a lot of Tori’s music, it takes several listens to even recall much of The Light Princess. And like a lot of Tori’s music, it’s not worth the time it takes. Six years of work, and The Light Princess sports the same weaknesses as nearly everything its author has done for more years than I’d like to remember. Shame.

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Proving that short records can be kind of lame too, here’s the Decemberists.

The revered Portland band’s new EP is called Florasongs, and its five tracks span a slight 20 minutes. Much like Long Live the King, Florasongs is comprised of outtakes from one of the band’s full-length records – in this case, the middling What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, issued earlier this year. That album found the band trying all sorts of ways to climb out of the simplistic hole they’d dug for themselves, and at least partially succeeding. It’s not a tremendous effort, but it is a varied one, and there are some gems in there.

If you want to know how bad it could have been, remove any five tracks and replace them with the ones on Florasongs. There’s a reason these songs were left out of the running order, pleasant as they are. I find myself most enjoying the swaying “Why Would I Now,” its sweet sentiment and its lush strings buoying its simple chords. I also can find time for “The Harrowed and the Haunted,” the type of minor-key folk song the Decemberists could write in their sleep. Colin Meloy has a voice for songs like this, and he almost manages to overcome the weak chorus and sell me on it.

I’m much less impressed with the other three. “Riverswim” is like listening to a coma, the punk-ish “Fits and Starts” is an interesting experiment that didn’t quite work, and the spare “Stateside” barely even exists. My chief complaint with the Decemberists’ output of late has been a lack of ambition, of grandiosity. I know it’s probably not fair to expect that from a 20-minute EP of outtakes, but Florasongs is indicative of the problem, as I see it. There were glimmers of life on What a Terrible World, and I want to hear them move further in that direction, not spend time on the dead ends that didn’t lead them anywhere new.

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Wow, harsh. Next week, I’ll be a lot more positive about a lot more bands. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s a grey and windy Sunday afternoon as I write this. I am listening to the fantastic, wonderful, gorgeous new album from Joe Jackson, and I’m wondering why he doesn’t get more respect.

That’s not to say that he’s not respected. He’s revered by those who know his work, and by his fellow songwriters. But if you’re not one of those, you most likely only know Joe Jackson for his hits: “Steppin’ Out,” “Is She Really Going Out with Him,” possibly “Breaking Us in Two.” Just about all of those hits came from his first five albums, released between 1979 and 1982. His new one, which I am currently basking in, is his 18th, and he’s garnered little to no attention for anything he’s done since Body and Soul in 1985.

Which is a ridiculous shame, and yet kind of understandable. Jackson has gone the same route as his fellow Brit Elvis Costello, crafting a catalog of tangents and genre experiments. Taken as a whole, Jackson’s output shows off a remarkable breadth, and is clearly the work of a musician who knows no boundaries. Taken one by one, I’m sure it feels confusing. Jackson is also not Elvis Costello, and there’s no shame in that – the man has few peers. But Jackson’s dips into orchestral music and big band jazz and whatever 2012’s The Duke was supposed to be haven’t been as artistically successful as Costello’s excursions in versatility.

But hell, Jackson has sustained a 36-year recording career doing whatever he wants, which is a pretty rare feat. He started, of course, as an angry young man, crafting three albums of sneering new-wave guitar pop. Even now, three decades on, the songs on Look Sharp and I’m the Man and Beat Crazy still sound perfect to my ears. (Here’s a slightly embarrassing story: the first version of “Got the Time” I ever heard was Anthrax’s cover, and when I finally got Look Sharp I was surprised and impressed by how little they had to change it to metal it up.)

Much like Costello, Jackson left his early, angry work behind shortly after perfecting it, and he’s never looked back. And much like Costello, Jackson’s detractors have wanted him to return to his early style ever since. Jackson’s first leap away was Jumpin’ Jive in 1981, a straight-faced album of small-band swing covers that must have come as a shock. 1982’s Night and Day probably came as a larger one – a guitar-less pop record that incorporated salsa and reggae and beautiful balladry, a paean to his adoptive home city of New York that, thankfully, spawned a few hits, including his biggest, “Steppin’ Out.” I say thankfully because, had Night and Day flopped, Jackson might have become more conservative in his musical choices, and we would have been robbed of an amazing journey.

That journey has included tremendous pop records like Big World and Laughter and Lust, but also grand-scale orchestral projects like Will Power and Symphony No. 1, demented theater pieces like Heaven and Hell, and delicate and gorgeous chamber-pop like Night Music. I gave a smack to The Duke earlier, but it’s a project only Joe Jackson would think of – modern renditions of Duke Ellington songs performed with the likes of Steve Vai, Iggy Pop, Sharon Jones and ?uestlove. Whatever else it is – and it’s not very successful – it is certainly creative and ambitious. Even when it seems like Jackson is slacking – that 2000 sequel to Night and Day, for instance – he manages to pull off something interesting.

Even when Jackson makes a big pop album like this new one, Fast Forward, it’s always much more intriguing than it seems. This one is a collection of four EPs, each one recorded in a different city – New York, Amsterdam, Berlin and New Orleans – with a different group of musicians. It is, if you’ll forgive me, all over the map, but it hangs together as a 72-minute statement very well. And that statement is that Joe Jackson, at 61, is still one of the best songwriters alive, and in fact has grown more comfortable with his elder statesman status and his remarkable past.

Fast Forward is an old guy record, mostly slower and meditative, but it’s a stunningly imaginative one. If his reunion with the original Joe Jackson Band in 2003 and his subsequent stomping, rave-up shows were something of a mid-life crisis, this album makes it clear that the crisis has passed. But he’s still too good, too cranky, too uncompromising to just give up and be Sting. Fast Forward incorporates many of his influences, from jazz to pure pop to chamber music to cabaret to soaring balladry to horn-driven rock – it’s like taking a spin through his catalog on (ahem) fast forward – and coalesces them into a lovely and complete summation.

At no point here does it feel like Jackson is trying too hard. In fact, it feels like all of these styles and sounds are well within his grasp. He’s confident enough to begin the album with the six-minute title track, a sparse ballad about accepting that the past is gone: “Not going back to the age of gold or the age of sin, fast forward ‘til I understand the age I’m in.” It’s patient, unfolding slowly, content to revel in its delicate melody and Jackson’s typically acerbic observations. Things pick up with “If It Wasn’t For You,” a swell, spiraling pop song that stands among Jackson’s best, and a cover of Television’s “See No Evil,” featuring – as all the New York songs do – Bill Frisell on guitar and Brian Blade on drums.

The New York material is the most typically Jackson, as you’d probably expect. His Amsterdam combo includes a full string quartet, and the material is suitably lovely – “A Little Smile” is a pure pop song, but “Far Away” is a soaring yet melancholy number that could have fit on Night Music, its first verse sung by a clear-voiced young boy hitting stratospheric high notes. The Berlin material is the most diverse, from the funk of “Junkie Diva” to the plaintive yearnings of “The Blue Time” to the record’s one stumble, a cover of 1930s German cabaret tune “Good Bye Jonny.”

But it is the New Orleans songs that pack the most surprises. They’re loose and jammy and full of tasty horns, and Jackson sounds freer and more at ease than I’ve heard him in ages. For once, he decides to leave us with joy instead of melancholy – the skittering “Satellite,” the thumping “Keep On Dreaming,” and finally, a full-on “Ode to Joy,” without irony. Yes, Jackson quotes Beethoven here, but in the midst of one of his most uplifting, percussive, raise-your-hands-in-the-air tunes. “Don’t say no when you feel joy,” he exclaims, and coming from this infamous curmudgeon, it’s revelatory. It ends things on just the right note.

Fast Forward spans 16 songs and nearly as many styles, and in the center of all of it is Jackson. He’s such a presence – his voice sounds as supple and strong as it did in 1982, and his writing has matured beautifully, still sharp and full of tiny daggers, yet warm and welcoming at the same time. Jackson might never get the respect he deserves, but on this grand new record, he stands tall anyway, not caring about accolades or awards. Fast Forward is a Joe Jackson album to the core, and the best one he’s made in probably two decades. And he did it just by being Joe Jackson.

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I’m always going to love Queensryche.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I fell in love with this Seattle band’s seminal Operation: Mindcrime when I was 14 years old. While it may not have been the first rock opera I heard, it was the first one I studied, the first one that opened my eyes to the possibilities of telling stories with song. Queensryche was marketed as “thinking man’s metal,” and beyond the obvious sexism there, it was true – in a world full of hair metal songs about girls, girls, girls, Queensryche was a serious political group with a lot more on their minds.

I think it was that focus that allowed them to outlast most of their peers, and the loss of original guitarist Chris DeGarmo (frankly, the best melody writer of the bunch). Even through 2011, Queensryche was making well-considered records that lived up to their legacy. I didn’t even hate Operation: Mindcrime II, though it’s not a patch on the original. And yeah, lead singer Geoff Tate had lost a bit of edge off that remarkable voice, but it was still there, and the band sounded lean and hungry behind him, still putting out worthy material.

Which is why the split just one year later was so devastating. It was acrimonious as all hell, with Tate on one side and the four players on the other, fighting over the name Queensryche, with each releasing albums under that name in 2013. It was intensely confusing and very sad to see what had become of this mighty band. What got lost in the shuffle somewhat is that both albums were good – Tate’s was a glorified solo record, but there were some solid tunes on there, and the band’s debut with new (and incredible) singer Todd La Torre tore the damn roof off, a 30-minute burst of pent-up aggression.

Now the legal issues are settled – the band won the right to be Queensryche while Tate retained ownership of both Operation: Mindcrime albums, and subsequently named his new band Operation: Mindcrime. (Yes, it’s a bit tacky, but he won the right to the name, so whaddaya gonna do.) Both entities are back with new records, released within two weeks of each other. Tate’s first Mindcrime album, The Key, is also the opening salvo in a conceptual trilogy, proving that he was the driving force behind all those rock operas. Queensryche, on the other hand, have created another slice of driving, powerful old-school metal with Condition Human.

And while I like them both, I’m giving the edge to Queensryche here. I love concept pieces, and Tate is spinning a decent one – The Key is the story of a guy who somehow comes to possess a powerful new technology, and has to evade death while figuring out how to give it away to the world. By the end, our hero appears to have died, which should make the two sequels interesting. As a concept, I have no trouble with it, but Tate and company haven’t written many compelling songs here. Most of these tunes suffer from late-period Queensryche syndrome – they’re content to pound out a single groove for a while without doing much with it, and they end up being pretty forgettable. Combine that with the obviously lower budget Tate is working with, and The Key is not as sweeping as he probably hoped it would be.

By contrast, Condition Human finds Queensryche sounding revitalized, fierce, ready for anything. La Torre is an astoundingly good singer – the band can give him anything and he’ll nail it. Some of these songs, particularly the opener and first single “Arrow of Time,” go full Iron Maiden, and La Torre brings the Dickinson. This album is about 25 minutes longer than its predecessor, and some of it drags – they have the same single-groove problem, to a lesser extent, that Tate does – but it ends extremely well with the eight-minute title track, a new Queensryche classic. The blasé cover art is easily the worst thing about this record. It’s tight, it’s full of energy, and it fully establishes the Todd La Torre era of the band.

In some ways, fans like me win out here – we get two Queensryches, in essence, and that’s not a bad deal. Some have taken sides, but I’m happy to see what both parties bring to the table. I’m interested to hear how Tate’s story wraps up – he’s said both sequels will be in the can by the end of the year – and I’m jazzed to follow this new Queensryche as they open up new avenues. More than 30 years on, I still love Queensryche, and I always will.

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This week’s episode of Doctor Who was the first of a two-parter.

This is apparently going to be the norm this season, after years of single-part stories. In practice, what that means is I have no idea what I thought of this week’s episode, really. I liked it – it featured an underwater base under siege by ghosts, a tremendous performance by Peter Capaldi, and a cliffhanger to die for. But I won’t know how I feel about it until I see the second half.

I feel the same way about the new album by the Dears, Times Infinity Volume One. As you can tell by the title, it’s the first half of a whole, with the second half due early next year. And while I like the 38 minutes we have, it feels incomplete, like it can’t really stand on its own. It’s quick, which is a new experience for me – the Dears are a massive, dramatic powerhouse of a band, painting on huge canvases and filling them with galaxies of sound. Leader Murray Lightburn has one of those stunning voices that rises above whatever noise his band is making, so they take that as a cue to make as much noise as they can. And their songs are generally wide-angle epics of misery and hard-won hope.

So to say that a Dears album flies by without really sticking is making a statement. This one has everything I’m looking for – lead single “I Used to Pray for the Heavens to Fall” is a juggernaut, a loose-limbed bass-driven pop song sandwiched between monolithic riffs, and the rest of the album follows suit, building whole temples atop thick foundations. I love most of these songs, from the swaying “To Hold and Have” to the dark “Face of Horrors” to the hopeless closer “Onward and Downward,” sung by keyboardist Natalia Yanchak. (“In the end one will die alone, and in the end we’ll all die alone…”)

But there are only 10 short tracks, and that’s counting the fact that they’ve not only named the four seconds of silence between tracks four and five, but they’ve made it the title cut. It really feels like we need Times Infinity Volume Two to understand what Lightburn and his cohorts are getting at here, what they’re intending to say. While Volume One is a fine little slab of Dears-style dramatic rock, it feels slight, like it’s trying to stand on one leg. I need more – I need to finish this story to really know what I think of it.

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One certainly couldn’t accuse Deafheaven of making an incomplete statement with their third album, New Bermuda.

Quite the opposite, actually. This record plays like a single 47-minute song, each ebb and flow dependent on the whole to make sense. Over five long songs, this San Francisco quintet fully perfects their singular sound – they can be the heaviest, fastest, most extreme band in the world one minute and the dreamiest the next, gliding effortlessly from Meshuggah and Brutal Truth-style metal to Robin Guthrie-esque ambience. New Bermuda feels like staring at the sea from the tideline – the waves pull back, softly nipping at your toes, and then pummel you, filling your nose and mouth with water, drowning you in cacophonous confusion.

This is one of the most tightly controlled musical experiences I’ve had in a long time. The lyrics even read like a single poem, moving from heartsickness to despair to death. (The final lines: “Then further downward so that I can rest, cocooned by the heat of the ocean floor, in the dark, my flesh to disintegrate into consumption for the earth.”) Lead throat George Clarke spits out all of these delicate words at full, atonal screech, his voice becoming just another element of the loudest wall of noise you’ve ever heard.

Nothing about Deafheaven is chaotic, though. Every element of this album has been carefully sculpted to deliver what is an almost overpowering experience, one that is leaps beyond their already impressive first two records. Deafheaven are playing in a field of one, creating something unique and fascinating. When I first heard New Bermuda, I described it as a religious experience, and I stick by that. It’s like nothing else I’ve heard this year, and that may be a good thing – I wouldn’t want to be trampled, uplifted and hollowed out like this on a regular basis. New Bermuda is astonishing.

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Next week, more words about more records. Yay! Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.