There’s just too much music.

It’s a common problem for me. I want to buy more music than I possibly can, and I do buy more music than I can possibly absorb each week. This year is just starting to find its groove, and already I have bought more music than I have heard, with more (much, much more) on the way. It’s a curse, really. Just this week I have a two-hour Sun Kil Moon record to absorb, as well as the long-awaited solo album from Peter Silberman of the Antlers and a crazy (emphasis on crazy) new thing from Dirty Projectors. Each of those demands more time from me than I can feasibly commit, and it drives me mad.

I expect this is why people lose touch with current music. I’m feeling that way this week more than ever, since I’m not listening to any of the above right now, nor have I been for the past few days. Instead, I’ve been diving into an album from 1992, one that I’ve heard dozens of times in the last 25 years, but one that still resonates with me in ways that Mark Kozelek’s silken ramblings never have.

The album in question is Pray Naked, the fifth album by the 77s, and if you’ve read this column for any length of time, you have heard me talk about Michael Roe and the 77s. They’re quite possibly the best rock band you’ve never heard, and Pray Naked is one of their very best records. Jeffrey Kotthoff and Lo-Fidelity Records have just released an incredible remaster of this album on CD and vinyl, and I admit I’ve been lost in it for a while.

But it’s worth getting lost in. I brought my lovely clear-white vinyl copy of Pray Naked in to my local record store and played it for the owners (and a couple customers), and it got rave reviews. The sound of the new remaster is amazing – the bass pops for the first time, the ringing guitars sound better than they ever have, Roe’s voice is crystal clear, and the harmonies just burst out. Even the thunder sounds on “The Rain Kept Falling in Love” sound fantastic.

The album itself is a transitional one: the original 77s dissipated after their self-titled album in 1987, and Roe tapped members of fellow California band the Strawmen to form a new 77s. Mark Harmon and David Leonhardt would become vital members of the band, with Harmon still one-third of the current lineup and Leonhardt joining for tours. This is their first appearance on record, and man, it’s a great introduction. The album explodes to life with the powerful Zeppelin-influenced “Woody,” then settles in for a long run of sparkling, gorgeous acoustic pop numbers.

It’s hard to pick favorites from those, but “Kites Without Strings” has been a touchstone for me for years, its glistening guitar notes dancing around Roe’s falsetto to haunting effect. “Happy Roy” is exactly what it promises – a danceable, memorable tune about lost love in the style of Roy Orbison. “Phony Eyes” is wonderful, as is “Deep End.” The album gets heavier as it goes, with the boogie of “Nuts For You” giving way to the instrumental maelstrom of the title track, and finally the oppressive “Self-Made Trap.” It’s a fascinating journey.

And it’s one that only a few thousand people have ever taken, which is a damn shame. The 77s always pushed hard against the expectations of the Christian label they were on, preferring to write songs about life and pain and anger and doubt, and it was with this record that the relationship truly started to fray. The label did not allow them to actually call the record Pray Naked, and blacked out the title track on the cover, apparently refusing to buy into the band’s intention – they meant emotionally naked, of course, but were very happy with the double entendre. (The title is restored on this new version, naturally.)

This tension has always cost the band. They’re too church-y for the radio and too radio for the church, so they exist in a no-man’s land between the two. I’ve been on a crusade for two decades to get more people interested in the 77s, and gorgeous remasters like this one help the cause immeasurably. This new Pray Naked comes with two CDs of bonus material, much of it capturing this lineup of the band live, and a DVD of a concert from 1990. It’s all beautifully packaged, and in a few weeks, it will be available online at https://the77s.bandcamp.com. There are plenty of other great 77s releases there now, though, for you to listen to.

And yes, I know, I’ve just asked you to commit more time to more music, which hasn’t gotten any easier since I started this column. I feel your pain. I think I’m in a period of prioritization, where I’m choosing the music that I will devote time to, and letting other music fall by the wayside. That scares me a little, since I promised long ago that I would never be one of those old people who clings to the music of his youth and disregards all else. I’m still trying to stay up to date, even though it’s difficult.

To wit, here is what my March looks like. It’s insane. Just next week, we’re expecting the return of Grandaddy, a five-CD album called 50 Song Memoir by the Magnetic Fields, a solo album by Noam Pikelny of Punch Brothers and new things from Colin Hay and Minus the Bear. And that’s the light week.

On March 10 we’ll get the new Laura Marling, the new one by the Shins, a solo album by Greg Graffin, the fourth solo album by David Bazan, a live record from Peter Murphy and massive reissues from Elliott Smith, Soundgarden and Fleetwood Mac. (The latter is Tango in the Night, which holds a special place in my heart as the first Fleetwood Mac record I heard.) March 17 brings us new albums by Spoon, Conor Oberst, Real Estate, Depeche Mode and Dug Pinnick’s KXM collaboration, along with an EP by Anohni and a live record from Regina Spektor.

March 24 will see the first Jesus and Mary Chain album in nearly 20 years, a new record by Aaron Sprinkle, the third solo album from the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, a four-CD and two-DVD live box set from Neal Morse and a sparkling reissue of Paul McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt. (Strangely, Flowers was also the first McCartney album I heard.) And the month concludes with a killer week on March 31, with new ones from Aimee Mann, Mastodon, the Mavericks, a three-CD album from Bob Dylan and a six-CD live box set from Phish.

I will never listen to all of that. But I live in hope. It’s all too much, but I’m looking forward to trying.

Next week, who knows. Did you see that list up there? Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Recently Ryan Adams wrote this piece in the New York Times about the first time he was truly rattled by a heckler.

The story is legendary: he was playing the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in 2002 when an inebriated gentleman who had apparently just discovered that Adams’ name is very similar to that of a Canadian pop star, shouted for “Summer of ‘69” repeatedly. Adams threw the man out of the show (after refunding his money), but the press caught wind and the story spread so far and wide that Adams couldn’t escape the jokes, and it drove him to therapy. He’s made peace with this part of his life, even covering “Summer of ‘69” a couple years ago, and this article seems to be his final step toward putting it behind him.

But even if he hadn’t admitted to a greater appreciation for Bryan Adams, you’d be able to hear it in his recent work. Adams’ new record, Prisoner, is a sharp mix of ‘80s Tom Petty and ‘80s Bryan Adams, all reverbed guitars and downbeat pop about lost love. It comes three years after his self-titled album, itself a whirlwind of chiming jangle-pop right out of the Petty playbook, but this one is served with a helping of heartbreak – it grew directly from his divorce from Mandy Moore, and doesn’t hold back on the anguish.

That makes it sound like a slog, but in truth it’s another set of piercing, well-written work from Adams. He was once considered one of the finest songwriters around, particularly during his more country-inflected years, and though it has been a while since anyone talked about him in those terms, he rarely fails to impress. Prisoner is a fine return to form after the slight Ryan Adams (and the curious full-album cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989), its 12 songs staring loneliness in the face and writing down what they see.

Opener “Do You Still Love Me” is the loudest thing here, its electric bursts underpinning Adams’ pleading voice as he repeats the title phrase. The organ and guitar work here is pure Heartbreakers, the lyrics pure diary entry: “I’ve been thinking about you baby, you’ve been on my mind, why can’t I feel your love, my heart must be so blind…” It’s not a strong couplet, but it sets the tone for the record – virtually every song is about dealing with emptiness and hoping for reconciliation, even when he admits (as he does on “Anything I Say to You Now”) that he doesn’t deserve it.

The focus on heartbreak does bring up that other Adams here and there, particularly on “Shiver and Shake,” which is reminiscent of “Run to You,” and on “Breakdown,” on which Adams laments the “pain he can’t hide” and his “black as coal” soul. Thankfully, Adams also sounds like himself frequently here. “To Be Without You” could have fit nicely on Ashes and Fire, its delicate acoustic foundation underpinning Adams’ sense of hopelessness: “Nothing really matters anymore.” “Broken Anyway” is a classic Adams ballad, as is “Tightrope.” When he strips it down, Adams shows he hasn’t lost a thing as a songwriter.

Prisoner is not an easy listen, and was obviously born from a lot of pain. But it’s a strong one, perhaps Adams’ strongest since his time with the Cardinals. Much of it really does feel like taking a Tardis trip back to the days of Cuts Like a Knife, but the style suits Adams, particularly this heartbroken version of Adams. I’m glad he’s made peace with his almost-namesake, and I hope he makes peace with his loneliness soon. But I’m grateful he captured both things on Prisoner. It’s one of his best in quite some time.

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I never know how to approach it when family bands break up or change lineups. Because of the deeper ties between siblings, these changes can’t just be business as usual, but my instinct is to treat them that way, and not think about family dynamics at all.

So when I tell you that Eisley, a band comprised entirely of siblings, now is fronted by only three of the five DuPrees, know that I am resisting trying to find out more about what could have driven this group apart. The core of Eisley has long been songwriting sisters Sherri, Chauntelle and Stacy, along with their drumming brother Weston and cousin Garron. But the Eisley that presents itself on their fifth album, I’m Only Dreaming, consists of Sherri, Weston, Garron and guitarist Elle Puckett. Chauntelle and Stacy, the band says, have left to pursue their own musical projects.

What does this mean for Eisley? Surprisingly, the change is not immediately apparent – I’m Only Dreaming contains the same lovely guitar-driven pop for which this band is known, and if it’s a little bit more subdued and dreamy, it’s only a little bit. Sherri DuPree-Bemis sings everything here (save for a quick featured verse by her husband, Say Anything’s Max Bemis), and she carries the record effortlessly. The songs are often memorable, and when they’re not, they glide by without leaving a mark.

I’m particularly a fan of “Rabbit Hole,” a quiet yet bitter moment played on acoustic guitar and little else, Sherri singing “so go and berate us, go underrate us,” then following it up with a plaintive “I love you.” I’m also big on “You Are Mine,” a circular pop song with charging guitars and a sweet chorus. I’m pleased to have a new record from Eisley, even this Eisley, and when I’m Not Dreaming is playing, it’s easy to forget that this isn’t the same band that recorded Currents and Room Noises. That’s the best one could hope for, and if the remaining DuPrees keep up this standard of quality, I hope they keep the band going as long as possible.

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The Eisley album is pretty, but it loses out to Alison Krauss in this week’s beauty sweepstakes. Then again, most things would.

It’s been six years since Krauss graced us with her heavenly voice, and nearly 18 years since she did it without Union Station, her crack bluegrass band. That’s almost enough time to forget what a fantastic singer and interpreter she is, but Windy City, her fifth solo album, wastes no time reminding you. A collection of ten cover tunes of classic songs in several styles, Windy City is a brief yet beautiful thing.

At times evoking Patsy Cline and at others Dolly Parton, Windy City mainly straddles country and orchestral balladry, but is canny enough to include a full dixie band on the Osborne Brothers’ “Goodbye and So Long to You.” She goes to the Osborne well again for the title track, a straight-up classic country tune with pedal steel guitars brushing up against strings, and then delivers an absolutely crushing jazz-pop rendition of Willie Nelson’s “I Never Cared for You.” Her crack band of Nashville musicians hits home run after home run on this material.

At the center of it all is Krauss and her voice, still an absolute delight. She manages to breathe new life into old chestnuts like Glen Campbell’s “Gentle on My Mind” and Eddy Arnold’s “You Don’t Know Me,” and positively shines on the piano-led rendition of Roger Miller’s gorgeous “River in the Rain.” She doesn’t play her fiddle as much as I would like, but her solo albums are almost always about that voice. They’re infrequent yet insistent reminders that Krauss is a pretty wonderful artist and a national treasure.

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That’s it for this week. Next week, man, so many options. I have no idea. Join me in seven days to find out. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Before we begin, a couple of album announcements that have made my February better.

Folk singer Peter Mulvey has been a favorite of mine since his first record label sent me a review copy of his dazzling third album, Rapture, back in 1996. I’ve followed him ever since – I was there that night at Raoul’s Roadside Attraction in 1999 when he wrote one of his signature songs, “The Trouble with Poets,” and I marveled at his delightful “Vlad the Astrophysicist” months before the internet got ahold of it. Now he’s made a new record called Are You Listening with none other than Ani DiFranco in the producer’s chair, and he’s crowdfunding it as we speak. Mulvey’s bar is very high, but with Ani on board I’m expecting it to be set even higher.

And this weekend, my favorite married couple band Over the Rhine announced that they have three new albums in the hopper – a full band record, an instrumental piano album by the male half of the duo, and a collection of old hymns and spirituals. I’m jazzed about all three. The preorder is happening now, and we should start seeing the new albums this fall. Over the Rhine has been a constant musical companion for so many years now, and I’m beyond delighted at this chance to be part of the next stage of their journey.

If there’s anything Mulvey and Over the Rhine have in common (besides a keen eye for beauty and an affinity for poetic lyrics), it’s that they’re survivors. Mulvey started out in the early 1990s busking in the subway stations in Boston (known as the T by those who live there). Now here he is, more than 25 years later, working with Ani DiFranco and prepping his 14th album. Over the Rhine formed in 1989, and Linford Detwiler and Karin Bergquist are still making beautiful music together after nearly three decades. These are artists who believe in slow and steady, who believe in pushing themselves into new territories, who see the long arc of their career as the important thing.

Andrew McMahon is a survivor, and not only in the sense of having a long and varied career. In 2005 – on the eve of launching his second band, Jack’s Mannequin – McMahon was diagnosed with leukemia. He persevered, and wrote songs about it – the second Jack’s Mannequin album, the splendid The Glass Passenger, touches on his illness. And he’s still here, in remission, still writing songs, still making records. Three years ago he unveiled his solo project, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, with a self-titled album performed largely by himself in isolation. It’s my favorite of his records, embracing synth-pop and exposing his raw feelings about parenthood, love and life.

I wondered if there would be a second In the Wilderness album, or if McMahon would resign that name to one-off status. He’s answered that question with Zombies on Broadway, a much bigger, fuller and more impressive In the Wilderness record. In contrast to the debut, this one was crafted with a cast of musicians and programmers – it’s the poppiest thing McMahon has ever released, diving deep into danceable synth grooves yet retaining his I-wrote-this-on-piano pop sensibility. The latter quality hasn’t changed at all since his time with emo guitar-rockers Something Corporate, and has always been his biggest strength.

If you’re a fan of McMahon’s hook-filled writing, you won’t be disappointed with Zombies. The album was recorded in part in New York, McMahon’s former home from the Jack’s Mannequin days, and he references both the state and the illness he was diagnosed with there on clang-and-clatter opener “Brooklyn, You’re Killing Me.” McMahon speaks the rapid-fire verses, coming within inches of rap, and it works very well: “My heart is a troubled captain in poisoned television waters, I had this air-conditioned nightmare like that book you gave to me last summer…”

The hits keep coming and they never stop. “So Close” should be a worldwide smash, so irrepressible are its groove and its multiple hooks. (I notice with relish that it was co-written with the Click Five’s Ben Romans. My Click Five love continues!) “Don’t Speak for Me” and “Fire Escape” follow suit, McMahon’s bouncy keyboards underpinning some of his strongest melodies. “Shot Out of a Cannon” is a little wonder, its swaying beat dropping in out of nowhere, its chorus (and that little widdly keyboard thing that follows its chorus) unstoppable. And then there is “Walking in My Sleep,” one of McMahon’s very best. “I keep going back there to the crowded street where I could see you walking in my sleep,” he sings over an electro-pop powerhouse that will move your feet, whether you want it to or not.

Yeah, Zombies on Broadway is bigger, and it’s stacked with crowd-pleasers, but McMahon’s lyrics still pulse with the same charm they always have. This is an album of love songs right out of his diary, McMahon describing his love as his rock, his grounding influence, his reason for being. It’s an album about persevering, together. “Let’s hang an anchor from the sun, there’s a million city lights but you’re number one, you’re the reason I’m still up at dawn, just to see your face,” he sings on “Fire Escape,” and follows it up with this from “Shot Out of a Cannon”: “I’m defying gravity and you’re the drug that’s keeping me from landing, we could fall or we could fly or we could borrow wings, I’m tired of standing…” “Don’t Speak for Me” is the album’s only bitter tune, and it’s about looking for the love he seems to have found in nearly all the other songs.

Zombies ends with its two most heartfelt numbers, and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that they’re the only two he wrote alone. “Love and Great Buildings” is a classic pop-punk ballad performed on keyboards, an anthem to survivors: “Love and great buildings will survive, strong hearts and concrete stay alive, through great depressions the best things are designed to stand the test of time…” And “Birthday Song” is a miniature epic about unremarkable life, about getting up and going to work on the most average of weekdays. It’s lovely, a paean to everyday courage.

Zombies on Broadway has clearly been crafted to expand Andrew McMahon’s reach. It’s a big, bright pop record full of supernaturally catchy tunes, yet as grounded and real as anything he’s done. I wouldn’t mind at all if this album took him to new levels of popularity. He’s deserved it for ages, and here he’s delivered some of his strongest and best songs. Getting to make a record like this one takes everything you’ve learned along the way, and it’s why you persevere.

Ace Enders is a survivor too, and to my mind, an unlikely one. I’m constantly thrilled by the fact that he’s still making music, both on his own and with his longtime band, The Early November. TEN had their moment in the sun in the early 2000s, as one of many sound-alike emotional rock bands on Drive-Thru Records. But in 2006, Enders proved his ambition with a triple-disc concept album called The Mother, The Mechanic and the Path. He was only 24 at the time, and it definitely feels like a product of youthful exuberance and confidence. The band broke up shortly after.

But Enders has kept on keeping on. He’s made eight solo albums and counting, and in 2012 he reunited the Early November, and they’re still going strong. If you want to hear how strong, pick up Fifteen Years, their new acoustic record. It’s a victory lap, recasting songs from all four of the band’s albums in quieter, more grown-up settings. Enders shows off what a good singer he’s become here, and the subtle touches of electric guitar and percussion set a meditative mood.

The album begins with “Narrow Mouth,” from the most recent Early November album, 2015’s Imbue. But it isn’t long before the band is catapulting back through time, rewriting some of their loudest and rawest tunes as hushed lullabies. “Outside,” from the first disc of The Mother, sticks to the bouncy tempo of the original, but feels more melancholy, more moody. “The Mountain Range in My Living Room” hails from the band’s 2003 debut, and it’s both unrecognizable and immediately familiar.

And of course, Fifteen Years ends with “Ever So Sweet,” the signature song from their earliest days. Only a young man would write these lyrics (“Ever so sweet that you baked it in cakes for me, what you left behind, it hurts my teeth”), but the older man singing them does so with honesty and affection. “Ever So Sweet” was always acoustic, so this new rendering is the clearest comparison – the only difference is that Enders is now 34, and is looking back instead of forward. It’s a lovely reminder of where he’s been, as he keeps pushing forward to new places. Persevering.

Next week, Ryan Adams and a couple others. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Elbow is incapable of making a bad record.

In fact, they somehow seem to be getting better in their old age. I say that somewhat facetiously – lead singer Guy Garvey and I are the same age – but also with admiration. Since appearing with a whisper in 2001, Elbow has made seven fantastic albums, and now an eighth, and with each one they’ve shifted their patient, meditative style into new territory. With each one, they’ve been getting a little quieter, a little more varied, and with their eighth, Little Fictions, they’ve pushed forward even more. The arc of Elbow’s career is long, to bastardize a phrase, but it bends toward beauty, and Little Fictions is absolutely beautiful.

Let’s not kid ourselves: the main not-so-secret weapon in Elbow’s arsenal is Garvey’s voice, rich and silky and deep. I’ve sometimes chided him for sounding like he just woke up, but over time Garvey has honed that voice into a stunning thing, gliding atop his band’s musical landscapes. In 2015 Garvey issued his first solo album, Courting the Squall, and it contained some of the most aggressive material he’d ever sung over, and it suited him just fine. Little Fictions, on the other hand, is some of the richest, grandest Elbow music, and Garvey again rises to the occasion.

If you want a good example of how full Garvey’s voice can be, just listen to standout track “Gentle Storm.” It consists of nothing but a drum pattern, simple and spare piano chords, and Garvey’s voice. And it’s extraordinary. When he draws back for the big chorus (“Fall in love with me…”), it fills the room, even if the room is the size of Grand Central Station. I don’t know if there are other versions of this song with guitars and strings and other instruments, but even if there are, the band had the good sense to realize that the song needed nothing else.

That’s not to say that tracks here like the opener, “Magnificent (She Says),” are overstuffed. The pulsing strings do wonders for that arrangement, and the larger feel of sweeping songs like “All Disco” and “Head for Supplies” works perfectly. The title track is another highlight, stretching to eight minutes and packing an album’s worth of spine-tingles into that time. Elbow’s music always feels like it’s moving forward, albeit slowly, but “Little Fictions” feels like it truly takes you somewhere. That’s largely due to the varied sounds the band brings in – this is their most sonically adventurous album, yet the experimentation never overshadows the songs, and never dilutes the essential Elbow-ness of the whole thing.

In fact, my favorite here is “Trust the Sun,” which may be the most Elbow track of all. It’s remarkably still, like much of their best work, all but training you to wait for and appreciate the smallest of changes. Its chorus is a little thing – an extended note, some prime piano chords – but in the context of what Elbow is doing here, it’s hard to imagine anything more gorgeous. Little Fictions is a sublime record, one that unfolds slowly and subtly, and by the end, it takes its place among the band’s best work. Which is, frankly, just about all of their work.

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The Flaming Lips are certainly capable of making bad records. And boy howdy, have they made a few.

I’m never certain what the Lips are going to sound like when they finally descend from their candy-colored mountain with new music. Lately it’s been even harder to guess. Just in the last 10 years they’ve covered Dark Side of the Moon and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, made a song that lasts six hours and followed it up with a song that lasts 24 hours, sold one-offs in gummy skulls and actual skulls, and backed up Miley Cyrus on an incredibly strange record. But in between all of that, they gave us a proper (and properly creepy) Flaming Lips album in 2013, called The Terror.

And now they’ve made another, and naturally, I had no idea what I’d be getting when I bought it. It’s called Oczy Mlody, which is a Polish phrase that translates to “the eyes of the young.” And if you can imagine an equal marriage between The Terror and The Soft Bulletin, that’s this. It often traffics more in soundscapes than in songs, but those soundscapes are pretty terrific. And when it does hit upon a melody, as it does throughout the back half, it soars. It doesn’t quite hit the heights we came to expect from this band in the ‘90s and 2000s – the hope, and there is plenty, is tempered by experience and gnawing uncertainty. But it still gets off the ground.

Before you get to the melodic denouement, though, Oczy Mlody hands you a heaping helping of weird. Just the six-minute “One Night While Hunting for Faeries and Witches and Wizards to Kill” would be enough, with its burbling synths and lyrics about force fields and severed eyes, but this album serves up plenty more. The seven-minute “Listening to the Frogs with Demon Eyes,” for instance, is a trip in more ways than one.

But the final three tracks make it all worth it. “The Castle” is classic Lips – strangely encouraging and brightly colored lyrics set to music that sounds like stars exploding in the sky. “Almost Home” follows suit, and the final track, the lovely “We a Family,” might be the most giddy and joyous tune the Lips have given us in more than a decade. Yes, this is the track that Cyrus features on, but she fits in perfectly, and the simple romanticism of the song bursts out of the speakers. It is, I hope, indicative of where their heads are now, because we could use more joyous Flaming Lips music.

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I know what you’re thinking. What about the rock? When am I going to write about something that rocks?

If that’s what you’re looking for, I have two albums for you, and they illustrate two sides of the same question: what happens to rock and roll when you scrub it clean? Guitar-drums duo Japandroids have, for two albums, been the poster children for raw, scrappy rock, fierce and furious and optimistic. For their third, Near to the Wild Heart of Life, they opted for a slicker sound, one that feels immediate and close instead of half a mile of tunnel away.

The result lays bare just how simple and repetitive their songs are, and how indebted to Springsteen they’ve always been. “North East South West” could be a Gaslight Anthem tune, as could the epic “Arc of Bar.” The songs are rough and tumble, but in this shiny form, they just don’t do enough to keep my attention. The band’s energy is still in top form. That energy just seems to work better when it’s dirty and distant. All that said, my favorite thing here is the slowest – the heart-on-sleeve “I’m Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner).” It’s a delightful respite among the clatter.

Speaking of clatter, there’s Cloud Nothings, the scrappy band of noisemakers led by screamer Dylan Baldi. The band captured attention with their second album, Attack on Memory, a much louder and more fiery piece of work than their debut. There isn’t much to Attack besides fury, but it has plenty of that, and the barely-there production (by Steve Albini, of course) only added to it.

Their fourth album, Life Without Sound, is considerably cleaner-sounding, but no less furious, and it still works. Part of the success of this record is Baldi’s songwriting, which has grown in leaps and bounds. The intricacy of the songs matches the production, and the band is tight and powerful. Baldi’s singing has grown more complex as well. I don’t want to oversell this – it’s a rock record, not Close to the Edge – but Cloud Nothings is a band clearly intent on growing without losing any of its sheer reckless force.

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All right, enough rock. Let’s end with some jazz and bluegrass.

I’ve been a fan of Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau separately for years now, so the thought of them joining forces on an album had me salivating. And it’s very good, but first, on behalf of everyone who still buys physical music, a gripe. There’s no reason this 64-minute record should be on two CDs and should cost twice as much as a standard album. There’s no discernible difference between the two discs – had the vocal tracks been sequestered on one CD and the instrumentals on another, I could have almost understood. But as it is, it’s just a ripoff.

That said, it’s a glorious ripoff. Thile is the mandolin player at the heart of Punch Brothers and Nickel Creek. He’s a once-in-a-generation kind of musician, and has reinvented the mandolin as a rock, bluegrass and classical instrument. Mehldau is at the forefront of a wave of new jazz players drawing from a contemporary songbook. His piano interpretations of modern songs, along with his own compositions and a healthy respect for the classics, have made him an important figure in jazz over the last two decades. It was without question that their collaboration – titled after both their names –  would be good.

And it very much is. Thile and Mehldau pick up each other’s groove particularly well. “The Old Shade Tree” is the only composition they wrote together, and it sounds like Punch Brothers to me, Thile wailing on vocals while Mehldau fills in for the rest of the band. Mehldau’s “Tallahassee Junction” is classic Mehldau jazz, and Thile’s strums fit in nicely. You can almost tell who suggested which covers: Thile leads on Gillian Welch’s “Scarlet Town” and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” while Mehldau does his thing on Elliott Smith’s “Independence Day.”

If I have a criticism of this collaboration, it’s that the two musicians spend so much time fitting into one another’s styles that they never really develop one together. But that’s OK. It’s their first stab at it, and for a meet-and-greet, this record is lovely. I’m hoping for more, but if this is all we get, it’ll do nicely.

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Look at that, a good old-fashioned new release roundup. Next week, the new one from Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, among others. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.