I remember wanting to grow up.

This is such an old man thing to say, but I didn’t know how good I had it when I didn’t have any pressing responsibilities. The worst thing I had to do at 10 years old was learn fractions. Now it seems like I need another seven or eight hours each day just to catch up with what I haven’t done. I’m having a pretty busy few weeks at work, which is translating into 12-hour days and a million emails and exhaustion and a chest cough that won’t go away.

What does this mean for you, assuming you couldn’t care less about my health? Well, one thing I haven’t had time to do is listen to and properly absorb new music. It’s coming out faster than I can process it – I have about a dozen albums from the last month that I haven’t heard yet, and this week I know there are about a dozen more coming my way. I’m trying to clear time in my schedule to listen, form thoughts and write about them, but it’s tough.

So I need a get-ahead week, and this is it. I’m going to abandon the idea that I need to be among the first to talk about new music – I have totally missed the conversation about Kendrick Lamar’s Untitled Unmastered, which I still have only heard once. I’m going to get to these when I get to these. Don’t be surprised if you see something from a month ago featured in this column. I didn’t start TM3AM to be on the cutting edge of music criticism, I started it to chronicle my life as an obsessive listener, and right now, that means being honest about getting to things late, and not reviewing them until I’m ready.

This also means I’m scrapping last week’s column, which I’ve been working on in bits and pieces for the last eight days, and calling it next week’s column. It’ll be a good one when I finish it – I’m tying together Sean Watkins, Little Green Cars and Cloud Cult into a treatise on hope. (Man, that sounds lofty. It’ll really just be three reviews.) I’m still working on it, but it will get out there. I hope to have reviews of Bob Mould and The Joy Formidable to join those soon.

I don’t want to leave you high and dry this week, so here’s one short review and, because it’s that time again, my First Quarter Report. Hopefully I’ll be back at full strength next week. Thanks for understanding, and for reading.

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As I mentioned above, I’ve been pretty tired of being an adult lately. That’s one reason I have been waiting for the new album by one of my favorite candy-coated pop bands, The Feeling. I’ve been sporadically listening to their first couple – the delightful Twelve Stops and Home and the enormous clockwork bubble gum factory that is Join With Us – in anticipation, and they’ve been filling me with joy, as usual.

But man, has this band grown up. They’ve self-titled their fifth album, and adorned it with a blurry sepia-toned photo, and it’s exactly the mature piece of work such things would lead you to expect. Truth be told, they made this transition an album ago, with the slow and stately Boy Cried Wolf, but here they fully come into their own as a serious band with serious ambitions. And even though I’m not quite in the headspace to appreciate maturity at the moment, this record won me over.

Unlike the meticulously crafted pop with which they made their name, The Feeling was recorded live in the studio, with minimal overdubbing, in only 15 days. That’s really laying it out there – you’re not allowed to suck if you record live – but the energy does these songs justice. Like Boy Cried Wolf, the tunes on The Feeling are often slower and simpler, but here they build to cathartic crescendos, leader Dan Sells pulling out an unrestrained scream on occasion that, surprisingly, doesn’t totally embarrass him.

The new Feeling template takes less from 10cc and more from Neil Finn, which is a nice tradeoff. Opener “Wicked Heart” is so repetitive it’s almost a mantra, but its we-just-started-strumming-this feel gives it a jolt. “Spiralling” is a lovely piece of music, one that could fit on a Crowded House album. The six-minute “Feel Something” is the best example of how recording these songs live has energized them – the song starts as an electric piano lament (“I want to touch, I want to taste, I want to feel something…”), but unfolds, growing and growing without really changing much, until by the end, it’s gigantic, guitars crashing and Sells shouting at the top of his lungs.

Those are the first three songs, and they set the mood – Sells is heartbroken, and the music follows suit. If you know the Feeling from their “Never Be Lonely” and “I Love It When You Call” days, this will be a shock, as will driving-through-dark-tunnels songs like “Real Deal.” The album only rarely quickens the pace, and when it does, it misfires: “Non-Stop American” and “Alien” are slight, if danceable, while “Young Things” is one of the worst Feeling songs – it’s entirely about being out of touch with the younger generation, but instead of coming off as knowingly ironic, it has a touch of creepy grandpa about it. (“I love the shit they say, I love the games they play…”)

Thankfully, there are more than enough terrific, serious-minded songs to make up for those. “Repeat to Fade” is an epic, shifting from slinky piano to crashing guitars in an instant. “Shadow Boxer” is another, this one as beautiful as anything the band has done, and “What’s the Secret” continues the lovely low-key vibe. Closer “Sleep Tight” returns to the dirge-like feel of “Wicked Heart,” but more soothing and easygoing.

It’s an interesting transition from rainbows to rain, but The Feeling have pulled it off. This self-titled album, for the most part, is a great example of how to grow up without growing stale. They were right to self-title it, as it feels to me like the start of the second chapter of this band, a complete change of identity that fits them just as well as the first. And I guess if they can be adults, then I can too, and I hope to do it with as much grace as this band shows in their finest moments here.

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All right, time for the First Quarter Report. This is basically what my top 10 list would look like if I were forced to publish it now. You’ll see a couple in here that I haven’t reviewed yet, so consider this my recommendation. Here’s the list:

10. Shearwater, Jet Plane and Oxbow.
9. The Feeling.
8. Daughter, Not to Disappear.
7. Kendrick Lamar, Untitled Unmastered.
6. Ray Lamontagne, Ouroboros.
5. Sean Watkins, What to Fear.
4. Gungor, One Wild Life: Spirit.
3. Anderson Paak, Malibu.
2. David Bowie, Blackstar.
1. Esperanza Spalding, Emily’s D+Evolution.

That’s a pretty diverse list, and while I don’t expect most of these to hang on for the next nine months, there are some gems here. We’ll see what the board looks like in June.

Next week, see above. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

George Martin was the first producer I knew by name.

The first time I heard Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, I was 14 years old, and I didn’t even know what a producer’s job was. I just knew that there were four Beatles – John, Paul, George and Ringo – and a fifth guy whose name kept popping up in anything I read about the band. Between 1963 and 1969, the Beatles essentially reinvented rock and roll, and their 13 albums and numerous singles and EPs stand as one of the best catalogs in modern music. And George Martin was right there from the beginning, the architect of the Beatles sound in the studio.

I can’t imagine what my world would be like had George Martin not, one day in 1965, suggested to Paul McCartney that “Yesterday” might sound nice with a string arrangement. That started the Beatles’ unparalleled creative streak in the studio, and as their work became more intricate and imaginative, Martin stepped up to the plate again and again. Revolver and Sgt. Pepper remain two of the most astonishing, immaculately produced albums in music history. Listen again to “A Day in the Life,” which may be the Beatles’ magnum opus. Listen as if you’ve never heard it before. Now think about the fact that George Martin pulled that off using less advanced technology than you have on your phone.

Put simply, George Martin made me want to learn how to make records. I learned what little I know about arranging music, about picking it apart and figuring out how it works, by listening to his work with the Beatles over and over again. I can still listen over and over, and hear new nuances, subtle touches that still reveal themselves, 50 years later. And I wasn’t the only one – the Beatles, with Martin, directed the course of pop and rock music from that point on, as innumerable musicians and producers studied and took from his work. Martin was undeniably the fifth Beatle, and though he had a long and illustrious career, it’s those seven years he spent sculpting the Fab Four’s imaginations into sound that will live forever. His work over those seven years has meant so much to me for so long that I don’t think I would be able to put it into words.

George Martin died in his sleep on March 8. He was 90. A good long life, well lived. Rest in peace, George.

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I’m a keyboard player. I tell people I’m a piano player, but I have always been interested in and captivated by the sound of synthesizers. And few people had as significant an impact on that love as Keith Emerson did.

Emerson was the keyboard wizard at the forefront of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, as unlikely a trio as the world has ever seen. I’ll admit to hearing Emerson, Lake and Powell first – specifically, the kickass “Touch and Go,” released in 1986 – but quickly learned where the really insane stuff could be found. ELP were completely, wonderfully ridiculous – Emerson played a piano that flipped around 360 degrees in mid-air, and led the trio through synth-rock arrangements of Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky. I remember hearing the extraordinary “Karn Evil 9” for the first time and thinking that I had never encountered anything like it. I’m not sure I have, even now.

Emerson kept working well into his late ‘60s – his last album was four years ago, a collaboration with a 70-piece orchestra. (Because of course.) He had been suffering from nerve damage in his hands recently, and on March 10 he apparently took his own life, which depresses me more than I can tell you. Emerson was 71. I hope he has found peace.

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Wow, 2016 is doing a number on us. I think we could use some good news. How about this: I just heard the best album of the year so far.

Like a lot of people, I only became aware of Esperanza Spalding after she won the Grammy award for Best New Artist in 2011. I’m inclined now to declare that award the most accurate Grammy ever given, despite the fact that Spalding was riding her third album, the lovely Chamber Music Society, at the time. Spalding is a bass player from Portland, Oregon, and up until now, she’s worked in a jazz-pop vein, composing lilting melodies for her crystal-clear voice and crafting soulful, café-worthy, sometimes horn-driven tunes to go with them. She’s brilliant, with a sophistication that belies her 31 years, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that her work could find a home at Starbucks.

But holy hell, her new album sets all of that on fire. It’s called Emily’s D+Evolution, and it’s insane. Spalding has retained all of the intricacy and head-spinning musicality of her previous work, but she’s added an edge, an explosive quality that is like lighting a fuse under this record and watching it burst. This is the most alive, most vital, most captivating music Spalding has made, jumping wildly from acid rock to ‘70s pop to Zappa-style jazz-prog to a cappella to pure balladry, and often several of those within the same song. It’s a sure-footed step forward from an uncommonly gifted and visionary artist.

Emily is Spalding’s middle name, and she pronounces the title “D-Plus Evolution,” like one that barely made it to graduation. But nothing about this evolution scores so low. Opener “Good Lava” is so jarring, so fiery, that it will have you making sure Spalding’s name is on the sleeve. Guitars rage, Spalding’s vocal melody juts out at odd angles, drums flail, and the bass – that bass! – is everywhere. From that point on, nothing on this album follows any sort of safe path. Often Spalding seems determined to trip you up – even the catchiest songs here, like “Rest in Pleasure,” are off-kilter, melodies darting and swooping out of nowhere, guitars chiming in where you don’t expect, the band painting with noise. These songs mainly stay within the four-to-five-minute range, but each feels like a journey over light-years.

Spalding never loses her capacity to surprise – dig the harmonized, spoken intro to “Ebony and Ivy,” leading into a Zappa-esque guitar-driven piece of beautiful map-shredding. She’s assembled a power trio here, with drummer Karriem Riggins and guitarist Matthew Stevens, both of whom hail from jazz backgrounds but have experience pushing boundaries. Riggins’ work in hip-hop serves him well here – he probably didn’t bat an eyelash at a bass-driven slice of weirdness like “Farewell Dolly” – and the three of them play remarkably well together.

“Funk the Fear” may be the most straightforwardly rock thing on the album, the trio locking into a slippery, complex groove that brings Living Colour to mind. The song is about being fearless, and that’s a quality that lives in every pore of Emily’s D+Evolution. Even Spalding’s most fervent fans will not be expecting an album like this, one that ends by extending its most accessible song (the gorgeous “Unconditional Love”) to a mind-melting nine minutes of spacey rock. Hell, she covers “I Want It Now” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as a demented acid show tune. That’s the kind of album this is.

Spalding is a brilliant original, and this is her finest and fullest album, one that leaves no doubt of her vision and her ability to realize it. I can’t get enough of this record, and I doubt I’m going to feel any differently in December, when it comes time to pick the year’s best.

In summary, she’s awesome, this record is amazing, and you need it in your life.

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Next week, maybe The Feeling, and perhaps Little Green Cars, Grant-Lee Phillips, Jeff Buckley and Sean Watkins. And hopefully, no more death. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s true what they say: you wait 20 years for a new Steve Taylor record and then two come along at once.

Taylor is becoming the ultimate comeback kid. I’ve loved his work since I was a teenager – his three early albums for the Christian market are more like smart bombs, blowing up the very idea of what can be done inside that box, and his incredible one-off band Chagall Guevara made one of the best and least appreciated albums of the ‘90s. After gifting us one last incendiary device with Squint in 1993, Taylor left music entirely to make movies and run a record label. (You may have heard of one of his signees: Sixpence None the Richer, whose big hit “Kiss Me” Taylor produced.)

And lo, there was much lamentation among his fans (myself included), much crying into the wilderness for Taylor’s return. And just when it seemed all hope would run out, return he did – in 2014 he teamed up with three top-notch musicians to form Steve Taylor and the Perfect Foil, and with the help of Kickstarter, they made the fantastic, raucous, biting Goliath. This record, in all honesty, is tremendous, a rocket ride of riffage that found Taylor charging back to the front in top form.

If that had been it, I still would have been happy. But Taylor and the Foil had to go and team up with Daniel Smith (of Danielson fame) for 15 more minutes of crunchy, melodic goodness. The new EP is called Wow to the Deadness, and like Goliath, it was funded through an extremely successful Kickstarter. I supported it, of course, despite my reservations – I’ve never liked Danielson, and Smith’s yelping voice gives me hives. It took me a while to get used to that voice sitting alongside Taylor’s rasp on Deadness, but if you can do that, this is a strong miniature whirlwind of a record, a quick blast that still manages to provide an amalgam of the Perfect Foil’s power and Danielson’s whimsy.

Wow to the Deadness was recorded in Chicago by Steve Albini, and if you recognize the name, you already know how this sounds – raw and tough. Jimmy Abegg’s guitar playing has never felt this sloppy before. It splashes all over everything here, all but drowning out the subtleties in a song like “Wait Up Downstep.” “The Dust Patrol” is the perfect example of the two styles colliding in Albini’s accelerator. It begins and ends as a propulsive punk song, but Smith sandwiches in an interlude straight out of the Danielson handbook, complete with flugelhorn. The song is two minutes long, even with all that, and it works surprisingly well.

“Nonchalant” is my favorite, which may be because it is the most obviously Steve Taylor song here, a mid-tempo, melodic delight. “A Muse” is the rougher cousin of Taylor’s “Moonshot,” and it visits several interesting back alleys in 2:17. Albini draws volcanic vocal performances from Taylor, and the band sounds like they did when I saw them live – invigorated, powerful and loud. Even Smith’s unchained howl can’t ruin this completely for me, although I could have done without his grating contribution to “Drats,” the most Danielson song here.

I’m in this for Taylor and the Foil, and on that score, thankfully, Wow to the Deadness does not disappoint. What looked a year ago like a great capper to a legendary career now feels like an opening salvo, and I hope this means that Taylor is back for good. My world can always use more of what he’s offering.

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It’s hard to say Anthrax was in need of a comeback, since they never really went away.

But I think people have forgotten what a top-notch metal band they are. They were one of the Big Four in the ‘80s, alongside Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer, and their run of albums from 1985 to 1990 (including the I’m the Man EP) is one of the most solid in metal history. Yes, they’ve stuck around, but the five albums they made with John Bush in the 1990s and 2000s failed to connect, partially because metal went out of style, but also because they weren’t quite as heavy-hitting as Anthrax can be.

But reuniting with original singer Joey Belladonna has done this band a world of good. For All Kings is the second album with Belladonna back behind the mic, and it’s a flat-out ballsy piece of work. Gone are the flirtations with acoustic folk and grunge that marked the John Bush years, and in their place are 11 slabs of furious awesome. The album opens with a brief fanfare, one that sounds a little out of place given what follows, but when the six-minute “You Gotta Believe” kicks in, there’s no doubt you are listening to a classic metal band at the height of its powers.

The thrashy vibe prevails over most of For All Kings, and even the somewhat slower ones (like the powerhouse “Monster at the End”) take energy from that vibe. “Breathing Lightning” is one of the few respites, starting slow but building into an epic anthem with a light, folky coda. But don’t get comfortable – “Suzerain” and “Evil Twin” will bowl you over with double-time drums and thick guitars. Belladonna sounds fantastic here, proving he can carry a band this forceful even at 55. The eight-minute “Blood Eagle Wings” slows things down without losing an ounce of that force, and from there it’s a race to the end, burning through killers like “All Of Them Thieves” and what promises to be a new signature song for the band, “This Battle Chose Us.”

And just as they used to do in the ‘80s, they save the loudest and fastest song for last. “Zero Tolerance” may seem on the surface like your typical hate-the-world stomper, but it’s a feint – the verses are meant to contrast with the chorus, which hides a message that resonates these days: “Zero tolerance for extremism in the name of religion, zero tolerance for racial hate… and on the day you meet your god what will he say?” It’s a shock-and-awe capper to what is one of the most solid Anthrax albums ever, one that makes me feel like I’m fourteen again, listening with headphones in my room and headbanging.

It’s also another piece of what is shaping up to be a Big Four renaissance, with Slayer’s Repentless and Megadeth’s Dystopia. Now we just need Metallica to put out something respectable again and all will be well with the world.

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Anthrax may not have needed a comeback album too badly, but Ray Lamontagne sure did.

I’ve been a fan of Maine’s own wonderful warbler since his first record in 2004. His voice is a stunning instrument, haunting and unforgettable, and over four swell efforts he married that voice to a lovely and spare style of folk and low-key rock. For 10 years, he hit whatever he swung at, from the gorgeous ambience of “Be Here Now” to the horn-driven wedding song that is “You Are the Best Thing.”

And while it would be an exaggeration to suggest that 2014’s Supernova derailed his career, it certainly dampened my enthusiasm for it. Supernova was an attempt at mass appeal – Lamontagne enlisted Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys to produce, and they created a short record of short songs infused with blues and ‘60s psychedelia. It was, at best, underwhelming, and it never once played to Lamontagne’s strengths. I like it more now than when I first heard it, but it still sounds more like Auerbach, like the producer decided more of what the record would be than the artist.

Which is why Ouroboros, Lamontagne’s just-released sixth effort, is such a pleasant surprise. It should be another Supernova – he hired another famous singer from a blues-rock band (Jim James of My Morning Jacket) to produce this one, and he amped up the psych influences, leaving his past even further behind. But it’s captivating, mesmerizing, convincing in a way that its predecessor wasn’t. One reason for that is its structure – this is two side-long suites, Pink Floyd style, with segues and a sense of working for the whole. There aren’t any radio singles in sight, and Lamontagne sounds committed to making something unlike anything he’s done.

Most importantly, Ouroboros (a symbol depicting a snake eating its own tail) brings back the atmosphere, an essential element of Lamontagne’s work. Opener “Homecoming” is a cousin to “Be Here Now,” its pianos and acoustic guitars buoying a journey into space, led by Lamontagne’s sweet, breathy voice. When the guitars kick in on “Hey No Pressure,” it’s jarring, especially since the tone is so thick and tactile – Lamontagne has never played with sounds like this before. “Hey No Pressure” is exactly the kind of bluesy song Auerbach would have ruined, but here it sounds alive, spacey and sloppy and real.

Ouroboros was recorded in a mere 15 days, which gives it a more spontaneous feel, even when it gets enormous, as on “The Changing Man,” which slides so beautifully into “While It Still Beats” that you won’t even notice. The second side is even more connected and even more Floyd – the lilting “In My Own Way” gives way to the Syd Barrett-like “Another Day,” with “A Murmuration of Starlings” an instrumental bridge to delightful closer “Wouldn’t It Make a Lovely Photograph.” Lamontagne sounds in control of all of this, and excited to bring it to fruition. It’s a marked difference from the static Supernova.

Ouroboros is vibrant, alive and awake, and even though it sounds nothing like anything he’s done, it feels familiar. “When I am with you, I am right where I belong,” Lamontagne sings on that closing song, and I couldn’t agree more. Welcome back, sir.

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This is a column about comeback records, but one of these things is not like the others.

That thing is Nada Surf, a band that has been remarkably consistent for about 15 years, ever since leaving the notion of stardom behind and signing up with Barsuk Records. Despite a run of records since then that would be the envy of most power-pop bands, Nada Surf is still somehow living in the shadow of their one hit, the acerbic “Popular,” from two decades ago. In that sense, I guess, every album they make is a comeback album, because people are surprised at how good it is when they hear it.

At this point, though, they shouldn’t be. Album eight, You Know Who You Are, is another gem, a brief yet impressive trip through ten jangly, swaying, upbeat guitar-pop songs played with no frills and no distractions. Former Guided by Voices guitarist Doug Gillard is now officially in the band, and he and frontman Matthew Caws gel perfectly, their twin tones dancing around each other. Everything is in service to the song, and these songs are as hummable and memorable as anything this band has done.

Opener “Cold to See Clear” is probably the best, or at least the most immediate – its chorus was stuck in my head the first time I heard it. But subsequent listens have revealed the beauty of less punchy songs like “Believe You’re Mine” and “Rushing.” The latter is a particular delight, an acoustic strummer with glittering accents and a sweet chorus (“You come rushing at me, and I forget my worries…”). This album is relentlessly positive, in love with the world, and yet never corny or syrupy. Nada Surf music puts a big, un-ironic smile on my face every time.

The title track reminds me of the Replacements, with its rollicking electric guitar and shout-along chorus. “Gold Sounds” feels like driving down a highway into the sunset, wind rushing by. And closer “Victory’s Yours” is as triumphant as its title, Gillard’s chiming guitars pushing it over the finish line. Like all Nada Surf albums, my main complaint with You Know Who You Are is that it’s too short – I could use another ten songs as tight and infectious as these. But knowing Nada Surf, if I wait another couple years, I’ll get them.

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Next week, Esperanza Spalding, who has just made my favorite record of 2016 so far. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The bloody 2016 struck too close to home this week.

I never really got to know Dan Waitt. By the time I started working at the Beacon-News in Aurora, he had been there for decades already. He was a quiet soul, and a kind one, willing to work extraordinary hours and pull off heroic efforts to get the paper out the door, without asking for an ounce of credit. He also had a wry humor – he didn’t crack jokes, per se, more like subtle commentary with a grin and a twinkle in the eye. Dan was an absolute staple of that newspaper, shouldering more and more of the burden as our co-workers left or were let go due to budget cuts, and doing it with a gentle demeanor that endeared him to everyone. A couple years after I left, Dan was the victim of one of those cuts, but he found another journalism job at a smaller organization and kept on going.

Talking to those who did know him better, I definitely wish I had been one of them. Dan died of lung cancer on Friday at the age of 55. The outpouring of tributes from my Beacon colleagues has been heartening to read. Dan was loved. I loved the guy, and I only knew him a little. I can only imagine how much I would have loved him if I’d really gotten to know him. Rest in peace, Dan. You were taken far too young, far too soon.

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I am obsessive about release dates.

I have an extensive calendar of those dates that I update every few days, as new albums are announced. I like to know exactly what’s coming, and exactly when it will be in my hot little hands. The furthest out my calendar goes right now is June, as I only include albums when a release date is firmly announced. But there are 54 entries on the calendar over the next four months, culled from a variety of sources that I check regularly. When I walk into the record store each week, I have a very good idea of what I’ll be walking out with.

And yet, it’s usually the surprises that make my year. If a great album appears out of thin air, grabbing hold and rewriting my life for a while, that’s just the best. If I don’t have time to anticipate it, I don’t have time to build up expectations for it, which helps. But also, I thrive on discovery. If something lands in my inbox, or is recommended to me, or appears suddenly on a band’s website, there’s a thrill in that which can’t quite be matched by updating a calendar months in advance. (Beyonce knows what I’m talking about.)

Case in point: Two weeks ago, I didn’t know that the new Gungor album even existed yet. And since then, it’s taken over my stereo. I’ve listened to other things, certainly, but I keep coming back to this one. It’s addictive. Gungor, as you may know, is a husband and wife duo (guess their last name!) who, for several albums, wrote liturgical pieces and modern hymns. In 2013, they smashed their own template, releasing I Am Mountain, a glorious mess of an album that leapt from style to style, landing at the top of my list that year.

Last summer, the duo announced One Wild Life, a trilogy of new albums to be released six months apart. The first one, Soul, landed in June of last year, and was, I thought, a pretty significant step back. An album of airy ballads with only a few standouts, Soul failed to make much of an impression, and I basically forgot to count the months until its sequel. Eight of them have gone by, which only made it more surprising when I received an email telling me Spirit, the second of the trilogy, would be available for download in a matter of days.

Even then, I didn’t have particularly high hopes, but Spirit is absolutely wonderful. It’s a more compact record, 43 minutes to Soul’s 57, and it just explodes with life and ideas. The diversity I love is back, buoying a newfound ‘80s pop influence that makes this probably the most fun you can have listening to a Gungor album. Opener “Magic” will make you want to do cartwheels wherever you are – it has that widescreen run-for-the-horizon feeling of the best orchestral indie pop. “Anthem” keeps the ball rolling, with its danceable groove right out of 1985. If you’re not at least tapping your foot by the time Lisa Gungor sings “my heart starts beating like an anthem,” I don’t know how to help you.

Every ounce of life I felt was absent from Soul is here in abundance. “Whale” is one of the weirdest things here (and in Gungor’s catalog), Michael decrying unnecessary division over a blaring synth klaxon. “Kiss the Night” is killer, a glittering pop song with a soaring chorus. Michael Gungor has a reputation for talking directly to his fellow Christians, telling them things they need to hear, and he does that here, urging them to leave their comfortable churches and be part of the world. “Consonance isn’t always peaceful, dissonance isn’t always evil, cross the line, listen to me people, seek and you shall find…”

That’s nothing compared to “Let Bad Religion Die,” a full-on treatise about hatred masquerading as faith. The song specifically references the Crusades, condemning them and all similar modern impulses. It’s a wonderful thing to hear from a Christian songwriter: “If it spreads violence more than peace, God let religion cease.” It’s a stark and sobering piece of work, and I applaud its boldness – this may not seem like a big deal to say outside the church, but inside, where Michael and Lisa Gungor live, it’s huge. That they follow it up with the soulful “Love is All” speaks volumes.

Spirit has a delightfully off-kilter conclusion. After the solid and uplifting “Hurricane” and “We Are Alive,” the Gungors break into a mostly instrumental Middle-Eastern-sounding affair called “Body and Blood.” It’s the longest song on the record, beginning with two minutes of Lisa Gungor’s wordless vocals over a synth dirge and hand percussion. It stays in dirge mode throughout, Michael’s heavily processed voice pushing it along, his lightning-fast guitar accents decorating the edges. It is, again, unlike anything they have ever done, and the choice to end this record with it was a brave one.

Of course, they didn’t need a grand finale, as this will lead into the third One Wild Life album, called Body, which will be out this summer. The chances of me forgetting about Body are slim, given how good Spirit is. It recaptures everything I loved about their hairpin turn three years ago, and has me anticipating the final installment of the trilogy. Spirit is the very definition of a pleasant surprise.

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You never know when a new Jandek album is going to drop.

Someday soon, I will write my epic column about Jandek, a strange and fascinating anti-musician from Texas. I’ve mentioned him here before, and my odd obsession with his output, but here is a quick primer. Since 1978, a man we think is named Sterling Smith and we think lives in Houston has been making some of the most utterly strange music you’ve ever heard. For a quarter-century, he was a complete mystery, issuing these records on his own Corwood label, offering them through mail-order only, giving no interviews and making no public appearances. The albums themselves contain no information whatsoever, except song titles and track lengths.

This would be interesting enough, but the music is its own brand of enigma. It is not so much incompetent as it is defying competency. It is entirely improvised by a man who cannot play guitar or sing in the traditional sense, and yet his apparent lack of skill actually adds to the atmosphere he generates. At times, Jandek makes the loneliest, most heart-drowning music ever. The words are often about isolation and pain, about crying out for love (or at least contact), and the bitter howls of his unrestrained voice, atop the chaotic mess of his playing, truly bring that across. I’ve never heard anything quite like it.

In 2004, Jandek began playing concerts. Now he plays a dozen or so times a year, all around the world, teaming up with local musicians and painting his vision on a larger scale. The music is all still improvised, and he still cannot actually play the instruments he performs on (including acoustic and electric guitar, bass, piano, keyboard and drums), but every live album is different. Lately he’s been releasing studio box sets alongside these live records too – the most recent sports six hours of piano and theremin improvisations. His vast catalog is like no other I have heard, and his commitment to this particular aesthetic is baffling and admirable. It’s been 38 years, so I’m pretty sure at this point that it’s not a joke. This is just how he hears music.

There is a Jandek website now, and you can order Jandek albums online, which is still a weird experience for me. And every once in a while, a new one will just show up at the bottom of the list, without any announcement or fanfare. It’s always a surprise. About two weeks ago, a new one appeared, and it arrived at my house few days ago. It’s his 82nd, and I’m just going to repeat that for effect: he has made 82 albums. This new one documents a 2008 concert in Dublin, one of the few he has played solo.

And maybe I’m just used to Jandek’s thoroughly unconventional style, but I really like this one. The representative from Corwood plays acoustic guitar and sings, and he performs an eight-part suite called “He Said Nothing.” It’s a long (63 minutes!) and winding tale about miscommunication and missed opportunity, and the Rep plays it in a subdued style, for the most part, on a guitar that is in standard tuning. The result is actually pleasantly hypnotic, and I’m left thinking that I know very few musicians able to weave a spell like this. For all his lack of technical prowess, Jandek has harnessed this style he’s created into something thoroughly unique.

This might mean my critical faculties are on the blink. I’ve been following Jandek for ten years now – the first new one I bought was 2006’s The Ruins of Adventure – and I’ve grown accustomed to what he does. As always, every time I hear a new one, I start waiting for the next one. I’m hoping he hits 100 albums someday. I’ll keep checking the Corwood website, and anticipating that little thrill I get every time a new one appears on the list.

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And then there are the surprises I’d have no way of anticipating.

These usually arrive in my life thanks to a well-made recommendation, and I have Mike Messerschmidt, of my favorite record store Kiss the Sky, to thank for turning me on to GoGo Penguin. I never in a million years would have randomly bought an album by a band called GoGo Penguin, but I’m very glad that Mike urged me to, because they’re fantastic.

GoGo Penguin (I will never get tired of typing that) is a British instrumental trio with a jazz lineup: piano, stand-up bass and drums. But like the Bad Plus before them, they play more of a progressive pop version of jazz. And in GoGo Penguin’s case, it’s progressive pop informed by late-period Radiohead more than anything else. Drummer Rob Turner is the most obvious Radiohead fan – his skittering beats resemble Phil Selway’s more often than not, and he guides these often-simple songs into more complex directions.

Pianist Chris Illingworth is less flashy, preferring block chords and never taking anything that could be considered a blistering solo. The contrast with the hyperactive drums works well – it keeps the focus on the songs. A piece like “Weird Cat” isn’t hard to play, from a piano perspective, but Illingworth and bassist Nick Blacka keep things grounded while Turner shoots for the moon. The result is like Aphex Twin-style ambient electronic music played on acoustic instruments.

New album Man Made Object is the trio’s third, and on it, they sound like a refined and confident unit. Every song is terrific, but I am particularly partial to “Smarra,” with its smattering of electric piano, and “Surrender to Mountain,” a stately mini-epic. This record has been fighting with Gungor for control of my stereo since Friday, and I’m thrilled to have it in my life.

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Next week, Anthrax, Nada Surf, Ray Lamontagne, and maybe a few other things. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.