Marillion’s new album is called Fuck Everyone and Run.

When I paid for this album a year ago, I had no idea it would be called Fuck Everyone and Run, and neither did the band. And when they told us, nine months into an incredibly successful preorder campaign, that the new album would be called Fuck Everyone and Run, I will admit that I didn’t know what to think. This is a band I have loved for 20 years and what the holy hell were they doing calling their new album Fuck Everyone and Run?

But being a Marillion fan is a state of perpetual, reciprocal trust. It’s how they operate. They’re the band that invented crowdfunding, using donations to fund a U.S. tour in 1997 and then an album, Anoraknophobia, in 2000, nine years before Kickstarter launched. Crowdfunding is based on trust – we give the band our money at least a year in advance, offering them the freedom to make whatever music they want, and we trust them to deliver something amazing. Likewise, the band trusts us with their art, taking enormous creative risks secure in the belief that we will give their work the time and patience it deserves.

This has been their modus operandi for 16 years now, and I can’t imagine there’s a band alive who wouldn’t be envious of the position Marillion is in. They haven’t been on a record label since the ‘90s. They are beloved around the world by a good-sized, incredibly devoted fanbase – 17,000 of us pre-ordered Fuck Everyone and Run, without hearing a note of it. They haven’t had to compromise or dilute their music in any way. They write whatever they want, play whatever they want, make exactly the records they want to make on their own timetable, and still get to tour the world and perform for thousands of people who know all the words to every song. Tell me that isn’t living the dream.

And man, do they treat us fans well. My preorder of FEAR bought me a gorgeous 100-plus-page hardcover book full of illustrations and photos and a making-of DVD that won’t be available anywhere else. Plus all 17,000 of us got our names listed in the book. Their concerts are magical experiences – I get to go to one in a couple weeks here in Chicago – and every two years, they host a series of conventions for fans, wherein they play their hearts out for three nights in a row for us. I attended one in Montreal last year, and it was one of the best concert-going experiences of my life. The fans feel like family, like we’re whispering this secret between us, so happy to find people that this band affects in the same way.

I’ve grown used to the fact that most people I know will not hear what I hear in Marillion, will not get the spine-tingling life-changing joy I get out of them. The fact that there are thousands upon thousands of us around the world, though – enough to fund a risky and powerful album like FEAR – is consolation. I would still be overjoyed if the people I love most were to accompany me on this journey, but hey, I get to support a band making music I love deeply, and immerse myself in new music every couple of years. Feeling bad about that, even a little, seems like whining.

Considering how much I love FEAR, whining is the furthest thing from my mind. Like all the best Marillion albums, this one is taking its time with me. It’s one of their most dense – it’s anchored by three long pieces that each stretch to more than a quarter of an hour – and easily their angriest and most political. Singer Steve Hogarth has said that this album captures his sense of foreboding – there’s a storm coming, he says, and it speaks the language of fear. The sweeping epics on this record tackle the love of money at the root of all evil, and the lyrics touch on Syrian refugees, wars wrapped up in religion, media manipulation and the shame of living in a country you don’t respect anymore. It even elliptically (and coincidentally – the song was written last year) references the Brexit vote that divided the UK into leavers and remainers. When Hogarth sings “fuck everyone and run” in “The New Kings,” it’s with an air of sadness – this is the attitude he feels from the moneyed “new kings” of the world, “sailing our seas of diamonds and gold.”

There’s no doubt that FEAR is meant to be a sequence, an album that draws strength from the mood it sets and the imagery it conjures and calls back to. Gold figures heavily, and not just on the cover – the opening multi-part suite is called “El Dorado” and sets up the first world as the city of gold, its streets only for some. It’s framed around that oncoming storm, beginning with bird sounds and tender acoustic guitar and lyrics about walled gardens in England, before the clouds roll in and burst: “The thunder approaches… tearing up the sky like paper, white-welding through the dark steel of clouds and the release of the sudden rain…”

From there, “El Dorado” grows ever more foreboding as it spins its thesis: money turns us into terrible people. The third section is called “Demolished Lives,” and in it, Hogarth turns his gaze to those struggling to get into the golden city: “I see myself in them, the people at the borders, waiting to exist again, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, denied our so-called golden streets, running from demolished lives into walls…” The gold stops us, he says. The gold always did. By the time the fourth section, “FEAR,” descends, the storm is in full gale. The band hits upon a repetitive figure and just simmers with it, building it to a boil slowly over four minutes while Hogarth lays it on the line: “And the madmen say they hear voices, God tells them what to do, the wars are all about money, they always were…”

I can’t stress this enough: Hogarth is absolutely amazing in this section, and across this album. He has long been one of my favorite singers, able to hold down a song with just a whisper or ride it full-throated into the atmosphere, and on FEAR he conveys great vulnerability and anger and frustration and, at times, hope. It’s a bravura performance, and when he’s quiet and fragile, as he is at the end of “El Dorado,” he breaks my heart like few singers I know. “We are the grandchildren of apes, not angels,” he sings, but even at the end of this crushing, darkening powerhouse, he’s hopeful. It’s stunning. Marillion is no stranger to opening albums with difficult epics, but “El Dorado” might be their most magnificent.

The single, “Living in FEAR,” is the antidote – it’s the most joyous, buoyant song here, and has the closest thing to a hook-filled chorus. This song is about leaving the keys in our unlocked doors as a show of strength, as a way of saying we’re not afraid, and though the words can be clunky (“We’re not green, we’re just pleasant,” which is a William Blake reference, but not one that rolls off the tongue), the sentiment is welcome. But it comes early – “Living in FEAR” feels like a resolution, like it should close the record, but it leads into three further long pieces full of sadness, anger and pain. The sequence is clearly well thought out, so this is meant to be a moment of light before plunging back into the darkness. And we’re meant to think of it as a nice thought blotted out by reality.

That reality gets a galloping start with “The Leavers,” for my money one of the finest pieces of the band’s career. Essentially the best “life on the road” song ever, “The Leavers” dives deep into the psychology of the nomadic lifestyle. “We sleep as we’re driven, we arrive before dawn, we wait in grey truck stops for the night to release us…” (This first section, with its pulsing keyboards and thunderous drums, is unlike anything the band has done.) Hogarth spares no one in this song – his family and friends, the remainers, are unable to “persuade us and tame us and train us and save us and keep us at home,” and he knows whenever he leaves he will be letting them down. But he can’t help himself – he belongs nowhere, arriving everywhere and leaving soon after. There’s a palpable sadness to this song, emphasized by Mark Kelly’s spare pianos, and though it ends in celebration – the final section, “One Tonight,” describes a concert – you know the joy is fleeting. “There are scars in our eyes from a thousand goodbyes…”

The piano forms the foundation of “White Paper” as well, a song which reminds me of the Blue Nile. The melodies are subtle and only reveal themselves with time, and like the album itself, it builds so imperceptibly that you barely notice before it’s at full strength. “White Paper” is about fear of losing someone, but also of losing inspiration and relevance. “I used to be center stage, time I should act my age, and watch from the shadowed wings all these beautiful things,” Hogarth sings, the full weight of his 57 years in his voice. This song and “The Leavers” are more intimate, more personal, and seem to suggest that the societal problems of the bookending longer pieces can be traced back to individual fears, individual insecurities. Here’s what I’m afraid of, he seems to be saying, and here’s where fear leads us to.

And where it leads us is “The New Kings,” the darkest and angriest song on the record (and in Marillion’s catalog). Sung largely from the point of view of the people who own the world, “The New Kings” trades in familiar language: “we’re too big to fall, too big to fail,” “greed is good,” “on your knees, peasant, kiss this ring.” But it’s all delivered with such frustration and resignation that it works. The band enlists a string quartet for the first time to add to the sadness of the early sections, and when the band is on fire here, Hogarth is phenomenal. Guitarist Steve Rothery finally gets let out of the box here – he’s been present on the entire album, but subdued, only delivering a few of those patented soaring solos. Here he’s everywhere, playing fiery leads on the first section and interlocking with bassist Pete Trewavas and drummer Ian Mosley on the intricate second part.

But it’s the final movement, titled “Why is Nothing Ever True,” on which Marillion erupts. Rothery plays with abandon for the first time, the storm in full force, as Hogarth lays this down: “Remember a time when you thought you belonged to something more than you, a country that cared for you, a national anthem you could sing without feeling used or ashamed, you poor sods have only yourselves to blame, on your knees, you’re living for the new kings…” It’s the sharpest, most pointed three minutes they have ever given us, the ultimate expression of “fuck everyone and run,” and even the miniature coda of “The Leavers” that ends the album can’t dull its impact. In fact, it sharpens it – the final words are about leaving everyone behind, fucking everyone and running. “We are the leavers, I’ll tell you a secret, it’s better to leave us alone…”

It’s a dark conclusion to a dark album, the waves of anguish leaving the hope of “Living in FEAR” a distant memory. But that spark is still there, waiting to be heard again, and I think it speaks the truth of this album’s call to action. Melt our guns, leave our doors unlocked, don’t be afraid. There is much to fear – money makes us worse, the people who have the money rule the world with impunity, people leave you and you leave them, and we all grow old and lose everything in the end. But facing all that with an open heart is worth it. A storm is coming, a storm is already here. I know I’m dreading November, and the years after that, and what this election season has taught us about the character of our country. But we can either cower from the rain, or run outside to meet it. It’s entirely up to us.

That’s a lot of insight to pack into 68 minutes, but it’s all there. I’ve barely mentioned the music, which is superb as always – Marillion’s work here feels like Talk Talk and Steven Wilson and Pink Floyd in places, but it always feels like Marillion. It’s intricate in ways that don’t immediately jump out, and on first listen it may seem like it all glides by without getting anywhere. This is a pretty common reaction to any first listen of Marillion – their music is patient, and it takes root over time. I’ve listened more than a dozen times now, and it’s come to life. It’s vibrant, focused, constantly moving, messy, raw, beautifully produced, full and rich. It’s Marillion. It stands up there with the best albums they have made. And it’s still surprising me with new delights, even now.

So yes, Marillion took my money and made an album called Fuck Everyone and Run. And I can’t thank them enough. The band has been around since 1978, and this is their 18th album, so at this point every one of these could be the last one. If this turns out to be it, I’ll be more than satisfied. Fuck Everyone and Run is one of the best albums they’ve made, in a career full of phenomenal albums. I’m proud to have supported it, proud to have been a small part of this band’s story for the past decade-plus, and grateful. So very grateful. And I’ll gladly keep on sending my money a year in advance and trusting Marillion to just be Marillion. There’s no other band like them.

* * * * *

I don’t know how it is where you are, but here in Illinois fall has landed with a thud. We went from 80-degree days to 60-degree days and colder with no warning at all. The end of the year is approaching, and here’s further proof: it’s time for the third quarter report. Here is what my top 10 list would look like if I were forced to publish it right now:

10. Sarah Jarosz, Undercurrent.
9. Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool.
8. Gungor, One Wild Life: Body.
7. De La Soul, And the Anonymous Nobody.
6. Beyonce, Lemonade.
5. Lauren Mann, Dearestly.
4. Paul Simon, Stranger to Stranger.
3. Esperanza Spalding, Emily’s D+Evolution.
2. Marillion, Fuck Everyone and Run.
1. The Dear Hunter, Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional.

It’s not often that I hear my number one and number two records within a couple weeks of each other, but I can’t imagine this list without those two at its apex now. I think the quality of this year crept up on me. Looking at this list, I’d already stack it against any other year, and we have three months to go.

Next week, the finale of Gungor’s trilogy and a couple others. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Let me tell you a story.

It’s a story about a boy who lived a life full of regrettable mistakes. His mother, a former prostitute in the big city, fled her terrifying employer, setting fire to his establishment as she did. She retreated to a calm place by a lake and a river to raise her son, but her past caught up with her – the monster she used to work for sent men to kill her, and they did. The boy was left alone to make his way in the world, and eventually found himself in the same big city, at the same place his mother worked.

There he found a woman he thought he loved, but when he discovered that she too was a prostitute working for the same monstrous man, he reacted badly, eventually leaving the city and enlisting to fight in World War I. While trying to survive the war, the boy quite randomly met his half-brother, who could have been his twin, and his father, who he learned had raped and abused his mother. His half-brother died in a firefight, and the boy, looking for an escape from the war, poisoned his father and fled, returning to his home country to take the place of his half-brother.

For a while, the boy lived his brother’s life, lying to his brother’s mother and his brother’s fiancée. But when the mother died, he drifted back to the city, discovering that the man who had his mother killed is in charge of more than he thought. This evil man was both a pimp and a priest, profiting from sin during the week and absolving it on Sunday, and using the knowledge of others he gained in both roles to blackmail people and stay in control. The boy resolved to defeat him, and planned to run for mayor of the city.

It was a tough election, and during the many months of campaigning, the boy lost sight of who he was, and what he was fighting for. He became so enamored of power and fame that his brother’s fiancée, still thinking him to be his brother, left him behind. He won the election, but it was a hollow victory, as it left him alone and friendless. And finally, the pimp and the priest tightened the noose, revealing that he knew the boy’s big secret – that he was pretending to be his half-brother – and would reveal it unless the boy did everything he said from now on.

Now the boy is hopeless and lost, looking for purpose. Though some small part of him still hopes one day to complete his revenge.

* * * * *

Be honest, you’d see that movie, right? How about if it were a movie for your ears?

The story above is the plot (up to Act IV) of the Acts series, a concept album in six parts by a band called The Dear Hunter. I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t heard of them – their last album, the astonishing Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise, sold 7,000 copies, and that was a career high. But those who know about them know that over the last 10 years, the Dear Hunter has been crafting a masterpiece, a story so rich in theme and symbol, so intricate and captivating that you could get lost in its waters. It’s possible to live in this story for weeks at a time, finding new callbacks and references, teasing out new character motivations, and above all, just reveling in the sweeping, glorious music.

And now that story is almost over. This summer, Dear Hunter mastermind Casey Crescenzo announced the release of Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional, suggesting it would be the final “rock” act in the story. So far, we have no idea what he means – Act VI could be an album of orchestral music, or a film, or a play, or virtually anything. What we do know is this: Act V wraps up this whole story in a way that feels like the end, like the capper on a five-and-a-half-hour concept album for the ages.

I’ve been thinking for days about how to review Act V without coming off like some drooling fanboy. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to. I’ve been living in Crescenzo’s world for a week now, obsessively listening and re-listening and dissecting both lyric and melody. There aren’t a lot of albums that command this much attention from me, that immerse me so completely. This one does. In fact, the Acts series as a whole is one of the most immersive musical experiences of my life. I listen to these records the way others play video games, spending hours at a time in isolation with them.

Why do I think what Crescenzo has done here is so amazing? Start with the fact that he’s told a strong, rich story over five albums (with a sixth to come). It would have been easy to lose sight of this story, or rush through it, or go over the top with it. (I’m looking at you, Coheed and Cambria.) Crescenzo did none of those. The five Acts show a consistency and commitment to a singular vision, a story that obviously means something to its author, told with all the skill he could muster.

Then, let’s talk about that skill. When he began the Acts, Crescenzo was a fairly typical emo-alt-rocker, coming out of a fairly typical emo-alt-rock band, The Receiving End of Sirens. You can hear these roots in the latter half of Act II, the first material he wrote for the Dear Hunter. But his ambition was far broader than that, and over these five albums, Crescenzo has grown into one of the most impressive songwriters and composers I know of, stepping up right next to the likes of Sufjan Stevens. It’s been a remarkable journey to watch, and Act V is his most adventurous and most accomplished effort.

Like Act IV, it’s impossible to reduce Act V to a genre or category. Again, Crescenzo has composed full orchestral arrangements for the whole of this album, and whether they are subtly augmenting or stirring things to new heights, they’re almost always present. Crescenzo recorded Acts IV and V together, so the feel of these records is consistent, but the tone is surprisingly different – where Act IV was kaleidoscopic, particularly during its final third, Act V is darker and sparser. But like Act IV, it takes your hand right at the beginning and carries you through its 73-minute running time as if it were a single song.

And here is where I need to say “spoiler alert,” if you are planning to listen to Act V with fresh ears. I can’t review it thoroughly, can’t explore my reaction to it without discussing the twists and turns of the story. (I think this may be the first spoiler alert I have ever written in a music review.) Suffice it to say that the album is amazing, everything I had hoped it would be and more, and that you should buy it. If you don’t want to know more, stop reading here.

* * * * *

When we pick up the story at the start of Act V, it’s clear some time has passed. It’s not clear how much, but the boy is still the city’s mayor, still under the thrall of the pimp and the priest. “Regress” is the polar opposite of Act IV’s “Rebirth,” opening the album on a somber and difficult note. The first tracks on the Acts work like Greek choruses, telling us what is to come, and this time the news isn’t good. The chorus describes our hero as “slave to the seeds you’ve sown” and promises he will “find relief, the end comes swiftly for you.”

And then we’re off, as “The Moon/Awake” explodes in a flurry of electronic drums. This is the first time the Dear Hunter has gone industrial, and of course Crescenzo makes it work. The song finds our hero lost, living someone else’s life under someone else’s control. He’s crying out for an apparition, a ghost, and I think he’s calling for his long-lost mother. (“Could we return to the hymn of the lake?”) This will be important later, as will the epic section at the end, in which he addresses this apparition directly. “Cascade” follows, and it’s another perfect Dear Hunter pop song, further showing how far the boy has slipped into self-loathing: “But I’m keeping it in, hate the sinner never hate the sin.” (This song gets stuck in my head at all hours.)

Crescenzo pulled off many things on Act V that he had never tried before, and the next track, the six-minute “The Most Cursed of Hands/Who Am I,” is one of them. There’s a dusty cowboy feel to it that isn’t a million miles removed from Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive,” and amidst the banjos and strings, it erupts now and again into a killer rock riff. The song is a parable about the devil challenging a gambler on a hot streak to a game of cards, and it’s full of references to poker (“The devil went down to the river”) and to previous songs. (There’s a great little reference to “Where the Road Parts” from Act II.) The “Who Am I” section at the end finds the boy examining his place in the story – “And I should idly bide my time until a wager releases me?” – while the strings recall “Ouroboros,” the fateful final song of Act IV.

“The Revival” just explodes from there, its brassy horn section augmenting what is one of Crescenzo’s best uptempo songs. The lyrics take us on a guided tour of the Dime, the brothel where the boy’s mother worked, still the pimp and the priest’s seat of power: “The secret’s safe as long as you pay… you can leave it when you walk away and pretend you’ve washed your hands of it.” And just like last time our boy was here, he meets Ms. Leading, the prostitute with whom he fell in love in Act II.

“Melpomene” (named after the Greek muse of tragedy) is one of the most touching songs in Act V, a straightforward harp-driven ballad about reconciliation and regret. “Though my youth did mislead, I would retreat to you, right back to your arms with my spirit aglow,” the boy sings. Crescenzo has often spoken of his immaturity when dealing with Ms. Leading in Act II, and this song is his chance to put it right, portraying two people who have grown and changed reuniting as friends, and more.

This reunion becomes one of the catalysts for the final act, and in the next song, the second catalyst arrives. His name is Mr. Usher, here to “usher” in the end of the story, and his signature song is the biggest departure for the Dear Hunter yet. Crescenzo goes full Michael Buble here, crooning over a swing beat and a full orchestral arrangement. It’s kind of great. Crescenzo swears that Mr. Usher is a new character, but there’s plenty of evidence in the song that he’s actually the pimp and the priest, including references to Act I songs “His Hands Matched His Tongue” and (yes) “The Pimp and the Priest.”

Whoever he is, he and our main character sing a duet next – “The Haves Have Naught” sounds like it could come straight from Broadway, so perfectly has Crescenzo aped this style. Gavin Castleton plays Mr. Usher, rationalizing oppression of the weak as necessary and good, while the boy, newly emboldened, refuses this point of view. The turning point of the album comes in the final verse, in which the boy sees the pimp and priest for who he is: “Just look at that charlatan steeped in deceit, a threat to the young, the old and the meek, don’t you wonder what made him so vicious, so sick, so far out of balance, so cruel and so callous, so married to malice?” This song is absolutely remarkable, the most theatrical number in all five Acts, and it begins the finale.

But first, the most emotionally resonant song in Act V. “Light” is where we learn that the boy has a son, most likely with Ms. Leading, which means some time passed after “Melpomene.” And here is where he says goodbye to him, knowing he is going off to fight the man who first brought him to the city, and has plagued his life from the first. “Light” is a beautiful song, mostly just acoustic guitar, and serves as a letter from father to son: “And boy, someday I hope I do see the man that you will grow into, and when your heart’s in disarray, know that your father too has made mistakes…” The bridge section finds our hero admitting his own cruelty and foolishness, that he has “strayed too far away from the trees and the lake” of Act I. This song brings the whole of the Acts together, and the narrative force at this point is so great that I don’t think I’ve made it through this song without tearing up.

And then, bang, we’re into the final section, and it’s non-stop. Seriously, from here to the end, I was on the edge of my seat, and even now, after hearing it 20 or so times, I’m still carried away in its current. Everything Crescenzo has been building comes to a head here, and it’s amazing. “Gloria” is a powerhouse, a song of determination: “I’ve been falling fast into the rhythms without rhymes, I won’t be giving up again, I’ll be getting up again.” Our hero’s apparition speaks to him in the chorus, singing “e dolore magna gloria,” meaning “from pain comes glory.” He’s on his road to redemption. (This song contains a lead guitar solo from Crescenzo that is out of this world, too.)

Throughout the Acts, there has been a repeated phrase: “The flame is gone, the fire remains.” At various points this has been a symbol of the boy’s continued life after others’ deaths, particularly his two mothers. And so when you know this, and see two songs in a row near the end of Act V called “The Flame (Is Gone)” and “The Fire (Remains),” it’s one of those moments that makes your heart leap into your throat. These songs are fantastic, the first referencing “Ouroboros” as our hero decides what he has to do, the second referencing Act I as the boy does what his mother did: burn down the Dime. (This is foreshadowed in “The Inquiry of Ms. Terri” with the line “reprise, two times, the Dime, burn it to the ground.” Ten years ago!) Both of these songs are crawling epics, huge and forceful.

Naturally, our boy hopes that by burning down the source of evil in the city, he’ll be reborn, renewed, washed clean of his part in it. (“Far from the ash, I will be born again, where every debt is repaid, nothing left to keep me out of paradise as portraits of the past fade away…”) Of course, things are never that easy, and in the breathtaking “The March,” the pimp and priest plays the victim and turns the city against the boy. He tells his secret – that the mayor of the city has been pretending to be his half-brother, “a man he left to die.” When the song transforms into “The Old Haunt” from Act IV, it’s probably the most musically exciting moment of my year. (“You tried to take control, but you couldn’t with a stolen soul, so we’re coming after you tonight…”)

“The March” ends with a snippet from “The Most Cursed of Hands,” the gamble gone awry, and then slips into “Blood,” where it all comes to a head. The boy tries to explain to the angry crowd, but ends up damning himself: “I’m a killer, but I’ve been killing myself all along, had I done my best to protect innocence or did I lead the wolf to the fawn?” He is beaten and left for dead, and in the final song, “A Beginning,” he seems to actually die. “Just one moment more before I close the curtain, fate uncertain, spirit to the dark, endlessly apart…” He sees visions of his loved ones one last time, and calls out to the apparition that has followed him, using the same melody from the end of “The Moon/Awake.” “Is absolution far too much to ask? Can you forgive a truly troubled past?”

The ending takes my breath away. As the strings collapse, our boy offers one final thought: “So trust that with this end a new beginning’s waiting patiently.” Then, as he slips away, the familiar piano refrain of “The Lake South” and “The River North,” from Act I, plays us out. It’s remarkably emotional, especially if you’ve followed this story from the start. Hearing Act V for the first time was an experience like few others I’ve had as a music fan. It was like coming to the climax of a great novel or a great film. It was captivating the first time, and has remained captivating each time after. It’s an extraordinary triumph, the culmination of Crescenzo’s growth as a musician and storyteller, and the best record he has made. Which means it’s one of the best records anyone has made.

* * * * *

So why haven’t you heard about it?

I’m not sure. The Dear Hunter remains a cult act with a few thousand followers, despite making albums like this one. (I’m not even sure where Crescenzo gets the money to make albums like this one, frankly.) I hope his genius is recognized someday. For now, we have a sixth Act to come, in which we’ll find out what Crescenzo thinks about redemption, and whether he thinks the character he’s spent the last 10 years with deserves it. And after that? I think Casey Crescenzo could do anything, so I’m excited to see what he chooses to do. This is a guy who has, at age 32, written a symphony and is on the verge of completing the longest and most complex concept album ever. Creatively speaking, he could go anywhere.

And that’s what’s most exciting to me about finding someone like Crescenzo and watching him grow. I have no idea what he will do, and that’s thrilling. Whatever form Act VI takes, I have no doubt it will be a fantastic finish to this one-of-a-kind project, and I’m on board for literally anything Crescenzo does next. Act IV came very close to being my album of last year, and Act V is, right now, my album of this year. If I hear a record I like better than this one in the next few months, I’ll be astounded.

The flame is gone. The fire remains. Bring on the finale.

Next week, Marillion or Gungor or Dawes or any number of other things. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a new music week as big and beautiful as the one we’ve just been through.

I’m grateful for it because it means I’m spoiled for choice this week. That also means I can take more time with the one release I was most looking forward to: The Dear Hunter’s magnificent Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional. I’ve heard it twice, and I’m beyond impressed with it, both as a follow-up to the fantastic Act IV and as a culmination point in the Acts series. But it’s so big and so intricate that I need more time to digest it. I’ll have a lot to say about Act V next week.

But luckily I have a dozen or so albums to choose from to fill this week’s column. And I suppose I’ll start with the one every other critic but me is going to go nuts over. At least I’ll get it over with.

It’s been a long time since Wilco gave me anything I’ve loved. That used to be a regular occurrence, back when Jeff Tweedy and the late Jay Bennett sparked off of each other, driving the band to new heights again and again. The stretch from Being There to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (including the Mermaid Avenue collaborations) remains not only Wilco’s best, but some of the best rock music made in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. The intervening 15 years have not been kind to the band, though, as Tweedy took sole control and decided to stop trying. There were signs of life on 2009’s Wilco (The Album), and I liked much of 2011’s The Whole Love, but nothing Tweedy has done since then has managed to stick in my brain.

So it goes for Schmilco, Wilco’s Nilsson-referencing 10th album. Recorded at the same time as last year’s godawful Star Wars, this record contains the quieter songs, the yang to its predecessor’s noisy yin. But the songs are no better, alas, and stripped of distortion and energy, Schmilco is just boring. Tweedy sounds like he couldn’t be bothered to wake up for most of this album. He’s cranky on “Normal American Kids,” but it’s a sleepy kind of cranky, like he’s angry with his alarm clock for rousing him on a Monday morning. He can’t even muster up the energy to be sad on weepy numbers like “Cry All Day” and “Just Say Goodbye.” It’s a performance worth forgetting, which should be pretty easy, given the lack of anything else interesting happening.

Tweedy does stumble upon some nice turns of phrase here and there. “Happiness” opens with Tweedy croaking “My mother says I’m great and it always makes me sad, I don’t think she’s being nice, I really think she believes that” and revolves around the phrase “happiness depends on who you blame.” “We Aren’t the World” is about clinging to someone else in the face of a crumbling future: “We aren’t the world, we aren’t the children, but you’re my safety, girl.” You want to like songs with lines like these, but Tweedy makes it difficult. The wobbly bass line in “Someone to Lose” is literally the most interesting musical thing happening. (That song is the most energetic here, too, with its piercing lead guitar lines. Tweedy almost has an expression in his voice.)

If I’m going to remember Schmilco for anything, it’s for including a song I almost turned off halfway through. The last time Tweedy inspired such a violent reaction, he appended 12 minutes of headache-inducing noise to the end of “Less Than You Think.” I won’t say “Common Sense” is that annoying – it’s a quarter as long, for starters – but the song’s pointless dissonance and ugliness is hard to sit through. It’s certainly jarring in context with the rest of this snoozy little record. The bottom line here is, if you like the direction Tweedy has taken the band (and you were particularly taken with his solo album with his son Spencer, who plays on Schmilco), you’ll like this. If you remember how great Wilco used to be and you long for those days, you’ll find this remarkably depressing. And then you’ll forget it ever happened.

* * * * *

On to better things. Specifically, two bands who made disappointing second albums and have now returned with their third efforts. How did they do?

First up is Local Natives, a Los Angeles collective that I tried out on a whim six years ago. I quite liked their first album, Gorilla Manor, for its kinetic folksy charm. They made the fatal mistake of teaming up with Aaron Dessner of the National for their second, the dour Hummingbird, which trudged in place for most of its running time. This is a band that deserved a killer second album, and they simply didn’t deliver. So now here is their third, Sunlit Youth, which wisely excludes any and all members of the National. But is it good enough to make up for a sophomore stumble?

Kind of. Sunlit Youth is certainly lighter and sprightlier, but it trades the nimble folk of the band’s early years for a more solid, unmoving electronic foundation. This album contains lots of sustained synths, some electronic drum beats, and more of a modern indie-pop sheen. I like the feel of “Dark Days,” with its shaft-of-light keyboards and quick, clean guitar licks supporting high harmonies (and a guest turn by Nina Persson of the Cardigans), but the song is no great shakes. The band worked most closely here with Brian Joseph, known for engineering some great records over the past decade, and this album sounds nice and shiny. But it all feels a bit anonymous.

The back half of the album is better, and it does liven up as it goes along. I’m fond of Little Dragon’s turn in the producer’s chair on “Jellyfish,” and I like the segue into the more bluesy and straightforward “Coins.” The final third is more organic, with the sweet “Ellie Alice” hearkening back to the band’s roots. My favorite here is probably “Everything All at Once,” which brings together the band’s electronic and soulful sides with a lovely string arrangement. Overall, though, Sunlit Youth tends to fade into the background, just another anthemic pop record with electronic sprinkles, and that’s unfortunate. I like it more than their last effort, but I’m afraid it’s a more forgettable piece of work than I was hoping.

The same fate thankfully does not befall The Head and the Heart, a winsome six-piece from Seattle. They’ve always been uncomplicated and direct, and I adored their first album, particularly the sweeping “Rivers and Roads.” Second album Let’s Be Still should have been the same as the first, only more so. Sadly, though, what sounded light and full of heart on the debut came off as leaden on the second, like the band was so concerned with staying in touch with their roots that they forgot to evolve.

Which is why their third album, Signs of Light, is such a welcome event. Their choice of producer was worrying: Jay Joyce has worked with the likes of Carrie Underwood and the Zac Brown Band. But it turns out that while Joyce brought a more modern feel to the record, he also seems to have inspired some of their best, most alive material. Everything I loved about the debut is here. These are songs about simple moments and lovely sentiments, wrapped up in easy melodies and the harmonies of the band’s three singers. It’s just bigger, it steps out a little more, it twirls in the sunlight a little longer.

And it suits this band. These simple songs shine in this context, and the voice of Josiah Johnson has never sounded better. Opener “All We Ever Knew” would be the closing song on a lesser album – it’s an anthem about leaving a destructive cycle and finding something better, and it has a delightful open-road feel to it. You’ll be humming “City of Angels” for days, and their cover of Matt Hopper’s “False Alarm” sounds like a long-lost Fleetwood Mac tune. Even a simple little tune like “Dreamer” benefits from the new sense of dynamics, instruments popping in and out at just the right times, Charity Rose Thielen getting to belt out some of those high harmonies.

As Signs of Light unspooled, I found myself waiting for it to flag, and it never did. The final tracks, in fact, are my favorites – the soaring “I Don’t Mind,” the absolutely heart-rending “Your Mother’s Eyes” and the dark-into-dawn title track make for the best ending this band has given us. The whole record has a sun-dappled feel, which belies the turmoil happening behind the scenes. (They took time off before recording this, and since March Johnson has been recovering from his drug addiction while the other five tour.) Those Fleetwood Mac comparisons are starting to feel even more apt – this is a delightful, optimistic record drawn from pain, and it’s so sunny and so easy to listen to that it will make its way into your heart before you know it. I love every minute of it. You might say, as some have, that they’ve gone pop here, but what they’ve really done is moved forward into the spotlight while retaining everything that made them such a joy their first time out. Signs of Light is simply wonderful.

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Of course, that’s not the whole story of September 9. In addition to the above, there were a bunch of new releases that might not deserve a full review, but deserve your time and attention.

Start with the new Teenage Fanclub, a quieter yet no less superb collection of tunes from this revered Scottish band, and then hear the debut from soulful rockers St. Paul and the Broken Bones. KT Tunstall embraced electro-pop on her new one, Kin, while Jack White collected his acoustic pieces together in one place on Acoustic Recordings 1998-2016. Nick Cave has a new one, Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau ran through a stunning jazz workout together, and Devin Townsend delivered the seventh of his Project albums, Transcendence. (I will probably review that one eventually.)

Add to that remasters of the Beatles’ Live at the Hollywood Bowl and two underrated Faith no More albums and you have a great, great week. I’ll be listening to this bounty for a while. And it’s not like it’s going to let up – the next few weeks will see the most intense concentration of new music this year, with expected highlights including Marillion’s new epic, the third part of Gungor’s One Wild Life trilogy, and new things from Bon Iver, Dawes, Opeth, the Pixies, Rachael Yamagata, Regina Spektor, Glen Phillips, Green Day, Tom Chaplin, and the list goes on and on. It’s a great time to be alive.

Next time, Act V. Get ready. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

In my day job, I work with scientists. And I have never met people more excited to be wrong.

These are people who spent decades puzzling out an elegant picture of what the universe is made of and how it works, and have spent every day since trying to break that picture. No answer is sacrosanct. If they poke holes in well-established theories, if they knock long-standing edifeces to the ground, then they call it a good day. These are people who know that being wrong is the first step toward being right, and there are usually a hundred wrong steps in between. They’re fine with that.

Me, I hate being wrong.

I hate it so much that I’ve been putting off writing this particular column for something like six months. That’s about 180 days, and my soundtrack for an inordinate number of those days has been Mutemath’s fourth album, Vitals. Upon its release last November, I panned Vitals, calling it “a wretched example of a band giving up on everything that made them special.” I called it “the furthest this band has fallen, the worst music they have made.” I even called it “one of the biggest disappointments of my year.” And at the time, I truly believed it.

I’m glad I ended my screed with the words “I’ll keep listening,” though, because that’s exactly what I did. I kept listening. And listening. After a while, it wasn’t out of a sense of duty, but because Vitals had grown into an album I wanted to hear, over and over. I shared it with people reluctantly, and several of them told me I was insane for not liking it. I kept listening, and about half a year ago, I came to the understanding that maybe, just perhaps, I had been wrong in my initial assessment. And I kept listening. The songs played in my head. A few months ago I realized that I liked every single song on the record, even the ones I found miserable on first listen.

And then, a couple days ago, I found myself playing the album as I got ready for work. I’m usually very good about stopping my morning music when it’s time to leave, but this time, I didn’t. I quite simply didn’t want Vitals to end. I kept it playing all the way through the final seconds of “Remain,” and sauntered into the office about 10 minutes late. That’s when I knew I had to write this. I’m rarely ruled by music. Rarely does music reshape my schedule and my life, demanding my attention. I enjoy Vitals so much that I made myself late for work so I didn’t have to turn it off.

So. I was wrong. I’ve spent some time trying to dissect my reaction to this album – why I was so put off by it at first, and why it so completely pushes my pleasure button now. I think I laid it out in that first review. I’ve been in love with Mutemath since their first album, and Vitals is the farthest from that sound their evolution has taken them. But here’s the secret I was missing: it really isn’t. It’s true that the core of the Vitals sound is synthesizers, replacing the warmth of guitars with a digital coldness, but the heart of this record hearkens back to that first one. So many of these songs now sound like direct descendants of the ones I still love from the debut, played in a new way.

One of the first Vitals tracks to click for me was “Safe if You Don’t Look Down,” which I dismissed initially as a synth-y home demo. I somehow missed the beautiful complexity of the melody, and the euphoric rush when the guitars enter about two-thirds of the way through. This song’s bridge is so perfectly Paul Meany: “Hide away your fears and take my arm, hold your balance, rest assured we’re right where we belong, with our chances, flying over seas of unknown ground, we won’t ever drown…” That part especially gets in my head and won’t leave, nudging against my brain. The melody is amazing, and it drives this already splendid song to new heights. And somehow I totally missed it.

Over time, that ended up being the case more often than I want to admit. “Stratosphere,” a song I always kind of liked, took hold, its swirling synths among the album’s best. The low-key “All I See” revealed itself to be a poem of uncommon beauty, probably my favorite Mutemath love song. I cannot keep from singing it. “Composed,” which I also waved away as a demo, now feels like the perfect breather, and the chord changes behind Meany’s “you give this old man hope” are unexpected and gorgeous. I sniffed at “Best of Intentions,” calling it a stab at Hall and Oates’ sound, as if that’s a bad thing. I think it’s the most fun moment of this record, and I look forward to it every time now. The instrumentals feel like important links in this chain now, not just wordless interludes, and the thick synth solo in the title track is one of my favorite things on the album.

I still have reservations about two songs, and they’re the obvious ones: “Joy Rides” and “Monument.” Opener “Joy Rides” remains my least favorite thing here, and I stand by the statement that it sounds like a Lexus commercial. But it’s fun, and it starts the album off on an upbeat note. “Monument” is still a little cheesy for me, but somehow in my first listens I missed the swell bridge section, Meany and his falsetto winning my heart before the heavenly synths come in. It’s still not the foot I would have chosen to put forward, but it has its charms.

Those are the only criticisms I have to offer, though, and by the time “Remain” fades out, they’re long forgotten. “Remain” is the one track that I unreservedly liked when I first heard it, and it’s only grown in stature for me. It’s this album’s “Stall Out,” a glorious cloud of atmosphere, only this one is unrelentingly hopeful. “Just keep trying, just keep fighting, just keep going, just keep surviving…” It’s among the band’s finest moments, on an album that I now realize is full of them.

So yeah. I was wrong. Not only is Vitals a terrific record, it’s eclipsed both of its predecessors in my eyes. I see now that Armistice was a decent album, but a timid one, treading water when it should have been bold. And Odd Soul, though it works much better for me than it did upon its release, is a mess, Meany and company trying on ill-fitting blues-rock outfits and attempting to create an album from jams. Vitals is the real deal, a reinvention that works beautifully. They’re a million miles from where they started, but they can still see where they’ve been, and that’s the best place to be.

In a couple weeks, Mutemath will release Changes, a remix album drawn from Vitals. I’ll buy it for sure, and I will be listening with nearly a year of built-up appreciation for its source. I suppose I could have waited to write this, and passed it off in a paragraph or two in the middle of a new review, but that wouldn’t have quite captured the depth of my about-face on this album. I absolutely love Vitals now, the way I love only a few albums from the past few years, and that change of heart deserved a full elaboration. So here it is.

Also, though, the next few weeks will be massive ones for new music, and I didn’t want this to get lost. Next week alone I am buying 15 new records, including efforts from Okkervil River, Local Natives, The Head and the Heart, Devin Townsend, Wilco, Teenage Fanclub, Wovenhand and the one I am anticipating above all the others, the Dear Hunter’s Act V. Still to come are Marillion, Bon Iver, the Pixies, Dawes, the list goes on. September is going to be amazing, and if I can keep up, I’ll be very surprised. Stay tuned to see how I do.

I’ll probably give Act V some time to settle in, so next week, a few of the new releases listed above. Be here. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.