If it wouldn’t have spoiled my movie reference, I would have phrased the title of this week’s column as a question. Do we need to talk about Kanye?

Because it seems like that’s all we do anymore. For the past few weeks, I haven’t been able to go online without seeing a new headline about something Kanye West said or did. Between proclaiming Bill Cosby innocent, starting and ending fights with other rappers, blowing his top backstage at Saturday Night Live, and for some reason deciding to upset Taylor Swift again, West’s well-documented boorish public persona is dominating the entertainment news. Some have suggested we’re watching his sanity erode before our eyes.

I don’t know about that. I don’t know West, so it would be difficult for me to say what his actual mental state is. I do know that if you took his Twitter account away from him, he’d probably be a lot less interesting to a lot of people. It certainly would have made the process of completing and releasing his seventh album, The Life of Pablo, a less fascinating one. Had West simply finished this record and put it out, it would probably not have been labeled a confounding mess before anyone had even heard it.

Instead, West gave us an inside look at the last-minute changes and seeming confusion that surrounded Pablo’s birth. Multiple track lists surfaced, and the title changed three times, from So Help Me God to SWISH to Waves to its current moniker. (For the record, though the original title was my favorite, I like the one West settled on, with its references to both Picasso and Escobar.) The album’s release was delayed for days while West added one more track, at the behest of Chance the Rapper. When the record appeared on Tidal, Jay-Z’s fledgling online music service, you could download it for $20. Within hours, that option was removed – you can only stream The Life of Pablo, and only from Tidal.

And now comes word that the album may not even be finished. West has promised to “fix” one of the songs, and though he’s pledged never to offer it for sale, rumors of a wider release continue to rumble. No one has any idea quite what to think at the moment, which I imagine suits West just fine. There’s a calculated edge to a lot of these moves, one that may serve as a counter-argument to the accusations of insanity. The Life of Pablo did dominate news cycles for weeks as West messed about with it, and it certainly brought more attention to Tidal than anything else released on the platform.

There’s a canniness to his egotistical boasting, too. One of my favorite moments of the pre-release madness was when West walked back his zealous pronouncements about the album, downgrading it to “one of” the best albums of all time. West walks an interesting line. Had he released this album with no fanfare, some people might have liked it more, but West is also aware of the backlash to his own hype, which lowers expectations. And when The Life of Pablo turned out to be a messy yet surprisingly heartfelt affair, I think those expecting a vile trainwreck were pleasantly surprised.

I know I was. The Life of Pablo is a tonally jarring piece of work that examines West’s own struggles with his ego and his public persona, but taken as a whole, it makes the case for his sanity. Yes, there are certainly moments when West slips into Yeezus mode and says something outrageous and sickening just for the shock value, and those moments mar the record like adolescent scribbles all over a Picasso, to pick a Pablo. But there’s a lot here about West trying his hardest to grow up, and a lot about the solace he finds in his family. So much of this is so arresting, so unlike anything we’ve heard from West, that I find myself wishing he would shut down the old Kanye completely.

The album opens with a terrific case in point. “Ultra Light Beam” is a gospel song, sparse and almost sacred. It’s so threadbare it almost doesn’t exist, West’s auto-tuned voice leading a choir over virtually no instrumentation, the song a prayer for salvation. “This is a God dream, this is everything, I’m trying to keep my faith, but I’m looking for more,” West sings, leading into a mini-sermon from Kirk Franklin: “This prayer’s for everyone who feels too messed up… you can never go too far where you can’t go back home again.” This is a recurring theme of the album – how one gets back over the lines one crosses.

“Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” begins similarly, a slow beat introducing a lovely chorus from Kid Cudi, and then the old Kanye shows up and ruins it: “If I fuck this model and she just bleached her asshole, and I get bleach on my t-shirt, I’m’a feel like an asshole.” I hope he does. With one verse he rips “Father Stretch My Hands,” a minor-key, melancholy suite, to shreds. It’s still a surprising piece of music, but it never comes back from those four misjudged lines. So the album is already in the position of the singer on “Ultra Light Beam,” needing forgiveness.

And on it goes like that. “Famous” contains that creepy Taylor Swift verse (“I think me and Taylor might still have sex”) roughly juxtaposed with Rhianna singing Nina Simone’s gorgeous “Do What You Gotta Do.” The all-over-the-place production is amazing as always, jumping from sample to sample with supple organ backup. All of these songs are short, and they sound half-finished on first listen – as soon as West finds a groove to ride, as he does on “Feedback” (with its shout-out to Black Lives Matter), he cuts it short.

The whole record is like driving over potholes. West jumps from “Low Lights,” a sampled prayer about the endless acceptance of God, to “High Lights,” a song on which he wishes his dick had Go-Pro and suggests that his wife is only with him because he’s rich. “Freestyle 4” is the worst of the lot, a full return of the Yeezus personality. It’s just wretched, an open door to West’s adolescent id. And yet, one song later, he’s presenting us with the most self-aware 44 seconds of his career: “I Love Kanye” is an a cappella verse about the old and new Kanyes, stabbing his own ego: “What if Kanye made a song about Kanye called ‘I Miss the Old Kanye,’ that would be so Kanye, we still love Kanye and I love you like Kanye loves Kanye…”

This is what makes me think that all the scribbled vulgarities and moments of outrageous stupidity are calculated. West knows what we think of him, and with the more mature moments of The Life of Pablo, he’s telling us that he’s not like this, or at least not all the time. The final third of Pablo (not counting the five bonus tracks) bears this out, containing as it does the most straightforward and sentimental material I’ve ever heard from West. “Waves” is remarkably pretty (Chance was right to fight for it), while “FML” is the closest to a confessional piece West has penned. It finds West reminding himself not to jeopardize his family for anything, knowing that people are waiting for him to stumble. It’s as sparse as “Ultra Light Beam,” with a strong chorus from The Weeknd.

Pablo ends with “Real Friends,” a low-key piece about getting what one deserves (with a self-indulgent verse about a stolen laptop), and “Wolves,” one of the most effective songs here. The airy melancholy that has pervaded the album is in full force, West returning to his 808s and Heartbreak mode for the vocals, and ending things with a strange verse about Joseph meeting Mary in the club, segueing into a final thought about protecting his family: “Cover Saint in lamb’s wool, we’re surrounded by the fucking wolves.” Frank Ocean drives it home with an atmospheric coda: “Life is precious, we found out, we found out…” It’s one of West’s most thought-provoking tracks, so naturally it’s the one he’s promised to “fix.”

As you may have surmised, I’m of the opinion that the album proper ends here, with an intermission and four bonus tunes tacked onto the end. These are the ones old-school fans are most likely to enjoy, and if you’re looking for pure hip-hop, “30 Hours” and “No More Parties in L.A.” will be like an oasis for you. (Kendrick Lamar is, as usual, excellent on the latter track.) For me, these are less interesting and less successful – they’re pretty typical, and the yin and yang of the old and new Kanyes is completely absent. “Facts” is a song about his shoes. “Fade” has virtually no lyrics. On this album these are bonus tracks, and I would think so even if West didn’t say so in “30 Hours.”

But The Life of Pablo itself is a thoroughly self-indulgent, often frustrating, yet always compelling document of a man at a crossroads. As usual, it’s not as brilliant as West thinks it is, but it’s still strong and fascinating enough that he can’t be dismissed. I’ve been pulling for him for years, hoping that his words would catch up to his musical skill. He has an ear like few others, and an artistic fearlessness that I have always admired.

The Life of Pablo will remind you at times of other albums he’s made, but it isn’t quite like any of them. It’s an impressive work, musically speaking, so I’m inclined to keep pulling for him, to celebrate the moments of growth and maturity here, and urge him away from his worst impulses. I can feel him wanting to be a better person throughout this record, and I hope he gets there, the words of Kirk Franklin reverberating in his ears: “You can never go too far where you can’t go back home again.”

Next week, some surprises. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I have been an introvert all my life.

As a kid, I spent a lot of time alone, reading and listening to music. (And I mean listening to music. Intently. With no distractions. The kind of listening I long for now.) I had few friends, and wasn’t particularly good at talking to people. And while I’m much better at interacting now, and I’ve somehow managed to attract a good many wonderful people to my life, I still often need to be alone.

You can laugh all you want to at those “introverts are” memes, but they often serve as a much-needed reminder that I’m not an outlier. Introversion is a real thing, a personality type that millions of people share. Sometimes it’s equated with shyness, and I can tell you in my case that’s not really true. I talk to everyone, and I’m pretty good in social situations, now that I’m past the more awkward teenage years. But I can only do that for so long – my limited supply of energy runs out, and I need to be back home with a book or a movie or a record, recharging.

As glad as I am that I know more about introversion more now, I’m doubly glad that it’s becoming more widely understood. (Seriously, thanks, Facebook memes.) When I tell my friends that I need to spend a weekend alone, they get it. When I leave a party early, they understand why. Being an introvert doesn’t mean I crave human connection any less, but it does mean that, as much as I crave it, I can only take so much of it.

I feel like music exhibits these same qualities of introversion and extroversion. If there’s a poster child for musical extroverts, it’s probably Elton John. Over nearly 50 years in the music biz, he’s been that gregarious, outgoing, big personality, the guy everyone wants to talk to at the party. And he seems to feed off it, playing to the crowd, remaining a showman even into his late ‘60s. Even when Elton gets introspective, his music is still big and welcoming, rather than insular. I could never imagine him wrapped in a blanket, refusing to go out and play a show. (That doesn’t mean he isn’t this way – I don’t know him – but his public persona is very much an extrovert.)

And he clearly doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him. Just look at the cover of his new album, Wonderful Crazy Night – it looks like it was taken with an iPhone, and it captures him at his goofiest. The slapdash nature of the cover might make you worry about the album, but there’s no need. Wonderful Crazy Night, Elton’s 32nd, follows up on the organic and inspired The Diving Board, and injects a nice dose of fun.

In fact, where the previous record was often ponderous and self-serious, this new one is just a blast. The Elton John/Bernie Taupin collaboration is still going strong after five decades together, and quite often this album recaptures the classic feel of their mammoth sprint through the 1970s. Elton’s on piano throughout – there isn’t a cheeseball synthesizer to be found – and his melodies are sprightly and bouncy. The title track sets the right tone, bounding in on a galloping piano figure, Elton looking back on his career as if it were a single night, and celebrating it. It’s simple and forthright and just what it needs to be.

Elton again produced this record with T-Bone Burnett, and the live, organic feel he brings serves these songs well. I’m a particular fan of the stomping “In the Name of You” and the delightful “Blue Wonderful,” but there isn’t anything here that stops the train. Even when he slows it down for “A Good Heart,” which teeters on the edge of mawkish, it works – the horns and harmonies bring it home. The album flies by in 41 minutes (49 if you buy the version with the two swell bonus tracks), and when he gets to the heartfelt finale, “An Open Chord,” he’s built up such a head of sincerity that he makes you feel the key line: “You’re an open chord I want to play all day.”

Perhaps the most striking thing about Wonderful Crazy Night is how joyous it all is. Elton isn’t wrestling with anything here, the heavier themes of The Diving Board all but forgotten. That makes this a slighter record, and probably a more forgettable one, but the major-key contentment that powers it is infectious. It’s an album that makes me want to go out and have fun.

And when I’ve done that and I’m completely out of energy, I’ll always have introverted musicians like Elliott Smith to come back to. Last year I had the pleasure of seeing Heaven Adores You, a superb documentary about the man I consider one of the best songwriters of my generation. Elliott was the ultimate introvert, a shy and quiet loner crying out for connection, yet unable to take it in for very long. The arc of the movie is, of necessity, a tragedy – a genius creating fragile, gossamer art who was suddenly thrust into the spotlight, found it too much, suffered from depression and alcoholism and drug addiction, and ended up killing himself at the age of 34.

Smith never shied away from these themes in his music. His songs, both with his band Heatmiser and on his own, are full of loneliness and rejection and compulsion. He wrote beautiful, complex melodies and bled all over them. Sometimes listening to Elliott Smith is like eavesdropping, so honest and raw are his words. The relative trickle of posthumous material proves that this was a consistent quality, his work an emotional exposed nerve. I’ve gratefully taken everything of his I can get.

What might be the final piece of unreleased Elliott Smith music is now here in the form of the soundtrack to Heaven Adores You. Thankfully, we haven’t reached Montage of Heck levels of bottom-scraping here. With a couple exceptions, this is a strong and consistent alternate look at Smith’s musical life, from his earliest recordings to his moment in the sun, and to his struggles after that. There are numerous highlights on this soundtrack – hearing Heatmiser bring muscle to “Christian Brothers” while Smith’s solo band tackles “Plainclothes Man” is revelatory, the numerous in-progress pieces give insight into Smith’s process, and hearing early versions of “Waltz #1” and “Coast to Coast” is a pleasure.

And hearing the audio of Smith’s performance of “Miss Misery” on Late Night with Conan O’Brien brings back so many memories. This performance, his first on national television, was so wavery, so deer-in-the-headlights, that it was clear to anyone watching how uncomfortable Smith was with his newfound fame. From there we get a few cuts from the final album he released when he was alive, Figure 8, and that’s all, since his final years are well documented on other posthumous records.

That’s all, that is, except for one thing, right at the end: “I Love My Room,” a song Smith wrote when he was 13 years old. It’s clear, even from this, that the man was destined to be a phenomenal writer. The song takes so many turns and detours, while never feeling self-indulgent. It’s beyond the talents of most adults, and it makes my heart ache just thinking about what could have been. He never really stopped loving his room, and the glare of the spotlight turned out to be blinding. Hearing so many unfinished pieces so full of potential here is heartbreaking, knowing that all of that potential is gone.

But it’s just so wonderful to hear Elliott Smith sing and play guitar that I’m happy and grateful for one more chance to do it. Smith’s music is like a warm cocoon, a blanket of isolation keeping the rest of the world out. In this cocoon, you can be as hurt and as empty as you want, you can feel any way you need to feel until you’re ready to face the outside again. It’s no wonder I’ve resonated so strongly with it for nearly 20 years. Listening to this, I’m sad all over again that Elliott Smith has left us, but grateful all over again that he was here at all, making his honest, powerful, introverted music.

Next week, who knows? Maybe Kanye? Maybe not? Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The first thing you should know about the new Bloc Party album is that it’s not really a Bloc Party album.

In fact, if you’ve followed frontman Kele Okereke’s solo work, you’ll probably find more in common here with that than with Bloc Party’s more popular records, like Silent Alarm. The new album is called Hymns, and it’s mainly a collaboration between Okereke and the band’s guitarist, Russell Lissack. They’re all that’s left of the original Bloc Party, and while they’ve hired a new bassist and a new drummer, the former appears sparingly on Hymns and the latter not at all.

So what we have here is a transitional album, a stopover in bedroom pop territory. Which comes as a real surprise after the band’s explosive 2012 reunion, the raw and live-sounding Four. This new effort is almost entirely electronic, like Okereke’s two solo discs, and feels like it was assembled rather than played. If you liked Four, this is its exact opposite, in other words. I like curve balls (and I especially like using baseball imagery while writing this on Super Bowl Sunday), but even I can see how this might feel like messing one’s audience around.

But that’s not the only thing about Hymns that might surprise longtime listeners. Okereke digs deep into religious faith here for the first time – many of these songs, like “Only He Can Heal Me,” are straight-up gospel. If you’ve heard the first single, “The Love Within,” you know what I’m talking about. “Pull back the veil, let your eyes meet this world, the love within is moving upwards,” Okereke sings over a pulsing, joyous electronic bed. The religious imagery continues in “The Good News” and bonus track “Eden,” songs that sit awkwardly next to the usual Okereke fascinations with drugs and sex.

I can absolutely understand if all of these swerves leave people feeling confused about what they’re hearing. I spent a lot of my first listen to Hymns waiting for the guitars to kick in. But I stuck with it, and ended up liking it a great deal. This album is quiet and contemplative, juxtaposing songs of salvation with songs of isolation, all wrapped in chilly synths. “The Love Within” is the goofiest thing here, particularly that wah-wah-wah keyboard sound, but it works, if only just. I much prefer “Fortress,” which is as minimalist as The Weeknd, Okereke singing in a fragile falsetto over a barely-there beat, an organ and some clouds. “Pull me under, under the ocean, cover my mouth with yours,” he sings, and it’s chilling and lovely.

Okereke is the focal point of this album, in a way that he hasn’t quite been on other Bloc Party records, and he remains a compelling singer and wordsmith. Even he can’t save something as amelodic as “Different Drugs,” though the song does sport a nice crescendo, but give him a slinky groove like “Into the Earth” and he nails it. The songs on which new bassist Justin Harris and session drummer Alex Thomas join in are all tucked in the second half, but they actually slide into the running order nicely. Hymns gets quieter as it goes, ending with “Living Lux,” a beat-free dirge. (Or with “Evening Song,” a similarly haunting track, if you get the deluxe edition. And you should, particularly for “Eden,” which should have made the album proper.)

I can definitely understand approaching Hymns with caution and skepticism. Bloc Party is half the band it used to be, and this is an album full of sounds and textures we’ve never heard from them. But as a portrait of an always-interesting singer and artist in a period of uncertainty and upheaval, it works well. I expect the sixth Bloc Party album will sound more like we expect. Until then, I’m enjoying this one a lot more than I thought I would.

* * * * *

I’m prepping for a business trip to Washington, DC, so I’m going to cut this one short. Just a couple quick reviews of new-to-me artists, and I’ll be done.

One reason I keep going to my friendly neighborhood record store, Kiss the Sky in Batavia, Illinois, is that the owners consistently recommend excellent music. A week ago, one of them suggested I give Anderson .Paak a spin, and I’m pretty grateful. .Paak’s second album, Malibu, is excellent. I like his work so much that I don’t even mind that pretentious period before his last name. (Though I may call him Anderson throughout this mini-review, just to keep my OCD from freaking out.)

Imagine if Stevie Wonder and Kendrick Lamar made an album together, and you’ll be on the right track. Malibu is a delightful mix of the modern and the vintage, dipping back into a soulful well while keeping it raw. “The Waters” is a great example – there’s a modern pop beat, a lovely choir of backing vocalists, and a spitting rap verse by BJ the Chicago Kid. It all sits nicely next to each other. Anderson’s voice is strong, but his songwriting voice is even stronger – this album jumps all over the map, from the spectal soul of opener “The Bird” to the two-part hip-hop epic “The Season/Carry Me” to the moody, Prince-like “Parking Lot” to smooth hands-in-the-air closer “The Dreamer,” featuring Talib Kweli.

Malibu is a strikingly confident record, one that is still unfolding for me. There’s a lot here, and surprises keep presenting themselves. Anderson .Paak has crafted a perfect hybrid of the old-school and the cutting edge, standing on the shoulders of giants and seeing to the horizon. He is what I wanted Frank Ocean to be. I’m looking forward to hearing more.

A Facebook friend of mine called Daughter’s Not to Disappear the first great record of 2016. I’m certainly inclined to give that nod to David Bowie’s Blackstar, but I won’t disagree that this English trio has crafted something compelling. This music exists at the intersection of shoegaze and post-rock, like the quieter moments of Explosions in the Sky records given an expansive, epic scope, and topped off with hushed and harmonized vocals. It’s enveloping, like running through a forest at night.

Elena Tonra’s voice is pretty, but her words are disturbing, heartbreaking and melancholy, and they add a personal edge to this wider-than-the-sky sound. “I feel numb in this kingdom, make me better,” she pleads on “Numbers,” over tribal drums and piercing guitar waves. “Doing the Right Thing” is about a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and it’s poignant and difficult: “I’m just fearing that one day soon I’ll lose my mind, then I’ll lose my children, then I’ll lose my love, and I’ll sit in silence, let the pictures soak out of televisions, float across the room…”

“Alone/With You” uses its mirrored structure effectively, detailing the pain of loneliness and of being with the wrong person. “I hate dreaming of being with you, terrified with the lights out,” Tonra sings in one of the few moments of the album that could be called harrowing. Two songs later she is defiantly shouting, “I don’t want to belong to you, to anyone.” While the first half of the album conjures a dark mood and builds on it, the second half, starting with the electronic rhythm of “Alone/With You” and continuing with the more aggressive “No Care,” rips that mood apart. It’s a nice dichotomy, a journey I’ve enjoyed taking. While I may not call Not to Disappear a great record, it is certainly a very good one, and one I’d recommend.

Next week, probably Kanye, once he decides what to call his album. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I have a long history with musical theater.

The first musical I acted in was called Kidsville U.S.A. I was in the first grade, and I played Mayor Arthur Apple. It took place in a town where all the parents disappeared, leaving the kids to fend for themselves. They decided to select the mayor alphabetically, of course. Then they all ate as much candy as they wanted and got sick. There were songs, there was dancing. It was awesome.

I’ve been in or worked on many musicals since then, despite a less-than-amazing singing voice, and have always been a fan of the art form. I saw Phantom of the Opera twice in Boston, like you do when you’re young and don’t know any better, but my experience working on a college production of Into the Woods ignited a Sondheim fascination that hasn’t died out.

Our local historic theater, the Paramount, has as its flagship a Broadway series that has brought top-notch Chicago actors and musicians to the suburbs, and I’ve enjoyed every one of those I’ve seen. Spring Awakening and The Book of Mormon are more modern favorites, and yes, what I’ve heard of Hamilton knocked me out. All that said, I clearly wouldn’t call myself an expert, or even an aficionado. But I definitely like musicals, and know the format well enough to enjoy it when it’s being homaged or mocked.

I also have a long history with progressive rock. Ever since I started dissecting music and figuring out how it all fits together, I’ve been fascinated by long songs with complicated passages. I think my gateway drug was Genesis, who, even in the later Phil Collins years, never stopped writing 10-minute songs with tricky structures. That led to old Genesis, and Yes, and (thanks to the prodding of a cranky music columnist named Seth Berner) to Gentle Giant. That led to the mighty Marillion, one of my favorite bands on earth.

Of course, I’ve always liked the louder side of prog as well. You don’t even have to stretch the definition of “progressive” to consider Master of Puppets a prog album, and I’ve loved that thing for almost 30 years. Iron Maiden remains a favorite, even now – their album covers drew me in, but their penchant for lengthy, complex opuses made me stick around. I’ve been a prog-metal fan for my entire adult life, from Pain of Salvation to Fates Warning to Between the Buried and Me to Opeth to Tourniquet to Coheed and Cambria. And of course, the big dog on the scene, Dream Theater.

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t know how much overlap there is between the prog-metal and Broadway musical audiences. So when I listen to Dream Theater’s latest effort, The Astonishing, I find myself wondering who – besides me, of course – will enjoy it.

The Astonishing is completely ridiculous. It’s a 130-minute musical spread over 34 tracks, telling the story of a futuristic kingdom that is saved by the power of music. It is 2112 or Kilroy Was Here extended to endurance-test lengths, with wailing guitars and cheeseball ballads. It is basically a prog-rock Les Miserables with flying robots, and while at times you hope that the band is approaching this tongue in cheek, the overall tone is very, very serious. Which, of course, makes it even more ridiculous. It’s taken me a long time to decide if I even like it, and I’m still not 100 percent sure.

One thing you have to admire is the band’s chutzpah. They did not half-ass this thing in any way. They even hired an orchestra and a choir to give it that extra push into epic silliness. There are eight characters and a narrator, and singer James LaBrie plays them all, affecting different voices. Evil Emperor Nafaryus gets his sneering metal snarl, while the princess Faythe gets an airy falsetto. He pulls it off, but it’s just one more example of how completely the band committed to this idea.

The Astonishing was the brainchild of guitarist John Petrucci, who wrote all the lyrics and co-wrote all the music with keyboardist Jordan Rudess. Petrucci used to be one-half of the artistic push and pull of Dream Theater, but with drummer Mike Portnoy’s departure a few years ago, he’s stepped into the role of creative director. (New drummer Mike Mangini is very good, but not the creative force Portnoy was.) This is his big coming-out party, his first solo conceptual piece, and while there’s plenty here I expect Portnoy would have argued against, Petrucci obviously gave this thing his all. I have to respect that.

But I’m still not sure if I like it. Let me tell you about the story, because the fact that you cannot divorce the music from the book is the album’s biggest stumbling block, and yet its most defining characteristic.

So. The Astonishing takes place in 2285, in the Great Northern Empire of the Americas. It is a land ruled by the aforementioned Emperor Nafaryus, and overseen by the NOMACS, flying robots that make the only music allowed by law: a whirring, computerized noise. Nafaryus gets word of two brothers, Arhys and Gabriel, the latter of whom has rediscovered real music, and is using it to draw people to the revolution his brother is leading. Nafaryus brings his son Daryus and his daughter Faythe to the town where the brothers live, to see this “chosen one” for himself. (Yes, it’s cheesy enough that there is a “chosen one.”)

Long (very, very long) story short, Gabriel falls in love with Faythe, Nafaryus threatens to destroy the rebels and the innocent people hiding them, Arhys makes a deal to betray his brother, and all the major players meet at a place called Heaven’s Cove for a violent denouement. The whole thing follows the structure of musicals to the letter, including the big, triumphant ending that brings the whole ensemble to the stage. Of course, music saves the day, the dead live again, Nafaryus sees the evil of his ways, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Are you still on board? Because yes, that’s all really, really silly, and if you’re looking for a deeper meaning, it is only that music, as a wise man once said, is the best. In a way, it does remind me of Zappa’s Joe’s Garage, except that Zappa was always up front about how inane the whole concept was, taking the piss out of it at every opportunity. Petrucci, on the other hand, is completely earnest – he obviously thinks this story is important, its message profound. He pens verses like this: “In this fleeting life we can sometimes lose our way, but night is always darkest just before the new day.” And he means them, and LaBrie sings them without laughing.

The lyrics on The Astonishing are awful by any measure other than Broadway musicals. If you’re familiar with shows like Miss Saigon and Rent, you won’t find any of this any more egregious. These songs – the longest of which is barely seven minutes – are pure Broadway. There are numbers that serve as exposition, and numbers that are clearly intended as breakaway pop hits (“Chosen,” “Begin Again”), and an overture at the top of Act One and an entr’acte at the start of Act Two. The whole thing is over-the-top theatrical, and meant for the stage.

In fact, the moments when this sounds like Dream Theater feel the most out of place. Not counting the overture, you have to wait until track 19, “A New Beginning,” for one of the band’s trademark instrumental workouts, and it comes off as obligatory, like throwing a bone to the hardcore prog-metal fans. I much prefer when they work their musical prowess into the format they’ve chosen. “A Life Left Behind” is a wonder, as expansive a song as DT has ever written, with a sinister twist at the end. “Lord Nafaryus” and “Three Days” are complicated pieces that move the story forward, guitars wailing the whole time.

Like any good musical, the first act sets up the situation and the second act builds on it, racing toward resolution. The music in Act Two is superior, I think, because it’s able to call on themes we know and associate with certain characters. The most effective moment concerns the surprise death of one of the characters, and if you’re even a bit invested in this story by that point, it will work on you. Even before that, though, the band takes some nice chances with the spooky “Heaven’s Cove,” and the climax of the second act is a rousing pop song called “Our New World” that is the catchiest thing here. The title track ends things by bringing back several recurring themes and wrapping them up into a crescendo. The final moments are screaming for an ovation.

With all that, The Astonishing is an exhausting listen, perhaps too much work for what you get out of it. I’ve heard it four times through, and I’m still not sure what I think. So much work went into this, and yet, with all that labor, the end result is still so cheesy. If Petrucci was aiming for an accurate homage of most big musicals, he nailed it. That doesn’t necessarily make for the best Dream Theater album, and songs like “Chosen,” while similar to pop hits like “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, are riddled with clichés. (“But I can’t climb this mountain without you…”)

That’s why I’m wondering who the audience for this mammoth undertaking is. Dream Theater’s fanbase probably won’t quite grasp what they’re doing – how perfectly “Brother Can You Hear Me” apes Les Miserables, for instance – and musical theater fans probably won’t be drawn to a 130-minute prog-metal album. They’re trying to bridge an interesting divide here, and I can see their usual fans crying out for long solos and progressive instrumental sections, and getting this. That’s one reason I admire the band for jumping into this thing with both feet.

Another reason, though, is that Dream Theater has been in a rut for a long time, churning out the same 20-minute epics and blistering solos, and they needed to shake themselves up. The Astonishing absolutely does that. The last time the band made a concept album, they delivered Scenes from a Memory, one of their very best. While The Astonishing may not rank up there with that masterpiece, it certainly breaks their samey-sounding streak, and gets them back in the game. They sound more alive, more committed here than they have in ages, even if what they’re committing to is a strange sci-fi story about the magical power of music.

The Astonishing, then, is an impressive deep dive into a form of music Dream Theater have never explored, with enough high points to deserve praise and enough cheesy moments to earn derision. I still don’t quite know what I think of it, both as a musical and as an album, but there’s no doubt the band poured everything they have into this, and if the end result is a revitalized Dream Theater, then it will have been worth it.

As a side note, while the story is, in the main, capably told in song, some aspects of it will need some further explanation. The band has provided that here. It’s recommended reading if you plan to take this ride.

Next week, Bloc Party and two new discoveries. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.