As much as I love the kind of labyrinthine puzzle box albums we talked about last week, if you know me at all you know my heart lies with the song.

Give me a catchy melody, some heartfelt and well-considered lyrics, and a solid structure and I’m in every time. I’m constantly on the lookout for songwriters who try to capture entire worlds in four or five minutes. Elvis Costello may be the best of them, but there are plenty of others – Aimee Mann, Neil Finn, Dan Wilson, the astonishing Paul Simon, along with the three I have on tap this week – who keep on finding new ways to marry words and music, telling stories and baring their souls.

Soul-baring is Ani DiFranco’s stock in trade, and a new Ani album is always cause for celebration. She’s giving us fewer of them these days – for the whole of the ‘90s, it was a given that there would be a new DiFranco record each year, culminating in 1999, during which she released three of them. Her twenty-first album, Binary, arrives after a three-year absence, although she has never stopped touring.

You grow up and you calm down, and this angry young folksinger has aged gracefully into a considered, textured songwriter. Albums like Binary just take longer to make than slapdash nearly-live documents like Imperfectly, and for my money, the deep, rich sound she conjures on this record is worth the wait. Binary finds DiFranco engaged with the world around her, preaching politics and feminism and letting her rage boil up more frequently than she has recently, and that also can only be a good thing. If there were ever a time for a strong female voice like DiFranco’s, that time is now.

The most direct song here is “Play God,” her feminist pro-choice anthem: “You get to run the world in your special way, you get much more, much more than your say, government, religion, it’s all just patriarchy, I must insist you leave this one thing to me…” It’s reminiscent of the old Ani – you can actually see her at 20-something, selling her cassettes out of her car and playing that guitar for all she’s worth, giving her older self a high-five. The only thing that separates it from the furious songs she used to write is the loping, jazzy groove, a staple of this record.

Mostly, though, DiFranco is here to talk about how to live together, how to build each other up without breaking under the strain of Trump’s America. “Alrighty,” amidst its arguments for a female God, is about remaining connected to our collective consciousness. “Terrifying Sight” is about looking around and not liking what she sees, buckling up for the difficult ride ahead. “Pacifist’s Lament” charts a nonviolent path forward, urging us to say we’re sorry and stop in the middle of our pitched battles. And closer “Delayed Gratification” is about teaching our children to live and act with empathy. “I vote in every election,” she sings. “Hopefully one day these kids are going to help us win.”

It’s an album with no easy answers, no quick fixes, and that’s fitting for someone whose years of engagement have given her perspective. I know this is a matter of debate among her fans, but she’s also become much better at wrangling these observations and ruminations into songs. Binary is a beautiful-sounding record, anchored by her longtime bassist Todd Sickafoose and her touring drummer Terence Higgins. They get DiFranco’s jazz-funk groove – to pinch one of her new song titles, they’re practically telepathic. They nimbly handle a tricky vibe like the “Spider,” and add punch to the one true love song here, “Even More.”

DiFranco jams here with some distinguished guests, including trumpeter Maceo Parker, pianist Ivan Neville and saxophonist Skerik. Justin Vernon pops up on “Zizzing,” but it’s violinist Jenny Scheinman who steals that show, and every track she’s on. Her solo on “Telepathic” is a highlight. Through it all, DiFranco, who has been self-producing her records forever, keeps everything focused. This is the work of a seasoned, experienced record-maker – it’s tight, colorful and exactly what it should be.

So yeah, a new DiFranco record is always cause for a parade through the town square. But one this good, this insightful and well-crafted, is even more welcome. She’s slowed down, but I hope she never stops. I’ll gladly wait three years for an album as good as Binary.

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If you’re going to talk about songwriters, you have to talk about Nashville. And right now, one of the best songwriters in Nashville is a guy from Alabama.

Jason Isbell has been at it for a long time, first as a member of Drive-By Truckers for six years (during which he gave us gems like “Danko/Manuel”) and then as a solo artist. It took him until his fourth album, the phenomenal Southeastern, to gain the acclaim he has always deserved. That’s not finger-wagging – I didn’t really pay attention to Isbell until Southeastern either, much to my shame.

But when I finally explored his work, I found a songwriter able to collapse whole novels into three minutes. Isbell is part of a long tradition of storytellers, one that includes Townes Van Zandt and Johnny Cash and Tom Waits and Hank Williams. Isbell creates characters, then gets behind their eyes and brings us their lives in a few incisive lines. It’s a skill few possess, and even fewer can do as well as Isbell can.

In some ways, the success of Southeastern was a liability. In retrospect, Isbell’s follow-up, the ambitious Something More Than Free, strained under the weight of expectation. It felt like a record with something to prove, branching out in new directions just to show that it could. What I like best about The Nashville Sound, Isbell’s new record, is that it feels free of that weight. It’s a confident, low-stakes record that paradoxically shows off Isbell’s undeniable talents better than the all-over-the-place nature of its predecessor.

For the first time since 2011, Isbell shares top billing on this record with his band, the 400 Unit. As you might expect, that means The Nashville Sound rocks a little harder and feels a little more live, and that vibe fits these new songs perfectly. After the acoustic opener “Last of My Kind,” the band leaps into action on “Cumberland Gap,” a roaring rocker about dying slowly in a small town. Here’s one of several perfect verses: “I thought about moving away, but what would my momma say? I’m all that she has left, I’m with her every day. Soon as the sun goes down, find my way to the Mustang Lounge, if you don’t sit facing the window you could be in any town…”

Good as the opening of this record is, there’s a stretch of songs in the middle that are as good as anything I’ve ever heard from Isbell. In “White Man’s World,” one of his best lyrics, he tackles his own privilege and responsibility as a white male American: “I’m a white man living on a white man’s street, got the bones of the red man under my feet,” he sings, and one verse later he finds himself “looking in a black man’s eyes, wishing I’d never been one of the guys who pretended not to hear another white man’s joke…” He sums it up perfectly in the chorus: “There’s no such thing as someone else’s war.”

“Anxiety” gets more personal with one eye on the world situation, starting with a riff right out of prog-metal and ending up as a seven-minute ode to the immobilizing stress many of us feel every day. “It’s the weight of the world, but it’s nothing at all, I’m light as a prayer then I feel myself fall…” On the glorious “Hope the High Road,” he obliquely references the Trump election, repeating “there can’t be more of them than us” and offering his hand: “Last year was a son of a bitch for nearly everyone we know, but I ain’t fighting with you down in the ditch, I’ll meet you up here on the road.” And on the great closer “Something to Love,” he sings of hope to his daughter: “I don’t quite recognize the world you’ll call home, just find what makes you happy, girl, and do it ‘til you’re gone.”

But for my money, the best thing here is “If We Were Vampires,” which is an odd title for perhaps the best, most realistic love song Isbell has ever penned. It’s about how mortality makes every second with the ones you love precious: “Maybe time running out is a gift, I’ll work hard ‘til the end of my shift, give you every second I can find and hope it isn’t me who’s left behind…” That last line links back to the chorus, in which Isbell is as frank as can be: “Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone, maybe we’ll get forty years together, but one day I’ll be gone, or one day you’ll be gone…” That he makes these sentiments beautiful, longing and haunting is a testament to his skill.

In fact, the whole of The Nashville Sound is a testament. Isbell sounds relaxed here, fully aware of his prodigious talent and comfortable using it. This is a songwriter at the height of his powers, making it all seem easy. Jason Isbell has been great for a long time, and he may be at his best on this record. It’s a thing of beauty.

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Speaking of songwriters that have been plying their trade for a long time, here’s Matthew Sweet.

I first heard Sweet when all of you did: in 1991, when his third album Girlfriend took over the radio and MTV. A snarling power pop gem, Girlfriend yielded several hits (the title track most notable among them) and made Sweet a household name, at least for a few years. His follow-ups Altered Beast and 100% Fun were similarly acclaimed, and his run of records through the ‘90s, culminating in the wonderful In Reverse, are unimpeachable.

And then I’m not sure what happened. It would be difficult for me to say that anything he’s done since In Reverse matches up to that historic run through the flannel decade. I’ve enjoyed his subsequent records, especially Sunshine Lies, but I could hear him running out of gas. He seemed to save most of his exuberance for a series of covers albums he made with Susanna Hoffs, and while those were splendid, they didn’t do much for his reputation as a songwriter. The last of those came out in 2013, two years after the last original album he made, Modern Art.

So when Sweet offered a new record through Kickstarter, I jumped at it, even though I doubted it would be anything special. My doubts only grew as the album took years beyond its original due date to appear. But man, I was so wrong. The new record is called Tomorrow Forever, and it’s easily the best thing Sweet has done since the ‘90s. It’s a generous 17 songs over 59 minutes, and I’d probably keep all of them, since the album flows so nicely. It’s his most consistent, most full-on power-pop record in many years, and it’s so good to hear him play and sing songs like this again.

All you need is the first song, “Trick,” to know that we’re back in classic Matthew Sweet territory. Guitars chug, lead lines step all over each other, and Sweet harmonizes with himself beautifully. It’s not quite like listening to Girlfriend again – Sweet’s voice is older and more worn – but it’s close. And Sweet’s gift for melody has followed him into his fifties. These songs are simple things, for the most part, but they’re lovely, and you’ll want to sing along. And when he gets deeper and darker, as he does on “Haunted” (featuring Rod Argent on piano), he reminds you just how good he is.

If you backed Tomorrow Forever on Kickstarter, you also got a 12-song bonus album called Tomorrow’s Daughter, which is (amazingly) just as good and just as consistent as the main disc. In fact, some of those songs (like “Years”) stand above the main disc, and the sound is overall rawer. I’m not sure Tomorrow’s Daughter will ever be available outside of the Kickstarter campaign, but combined with the main record, Sweet has given us 29 new tunes over 100 minutes. That’s how you make a comeback.

I’m so happy to be here for this Matthew Sweet renaissance. If you’ve been confused or turned off by Sweet’s post-‘90s output, this is the record you’ve been hoping for. Fingers crossed that it’s just the start of a killer third act. I’ll be listening.

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This week’s column ran way too long, so I’m going to hold off on the Second Quarter Report until next week. I’ll also be taking a look at some out-of-the-blue surprises. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I have too much music to listen to.

I understand, of course, that on the scale of problems I could have, “I have too much music to listen to” doesn’t really rate. It ranks up there with “I don’t like this new car smell” and “I really wish people would stop handing me money for no reason.” I get that. But bear with me. I promise this won’t be too whiny.

Because I want to talk about complexity this week, which is a common theme here at Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. I love complexity. I love albums that require a dozen listens to fully grasp, and even then you end up finding more and more to praise about them. I love music that requires my time and patience to unravel and to truly appreciate. I absolutely adore spending weeks with a new record, swimming in its depths, piecing together my reaction to it.

I’m sure you see where I’m going with this. With the virtual tidal wave of new music coming at me lately, I’m only able to give most records two or three listens. If I don’t keep this pace up, I miss out on giving at least one listen to everything I buy, and I would like to keep up. But that means that when faced with albums of the caliber and complexity I’m writing about this week, I just don’t have the time to give them the attention they need.

So what you’re getting this week is first impressions of albums that I know I will be listening to for years. Both of these records give me that tingly feeling in the back of my head, the one that says to me that I’m hearing an album I will treasure for a long, long time. And both of them, it must be said, are tricky and dense and difficult enough that I know I am only scratching the surface right now, and it will take months of repeated plays to truly unlock everything here.

Both of them floated in seemingly out of nowhere, too. It’s been long enough since the second Fleet Foxes album, 2011’s lovely Helplessness Blues, that you’d be forgiven for wondering if we would ever get a third one. Leader Robin Pecknold has been talking about new Fleet Foxes music for a while, but as the years ticked by without any specifics, it felt like empty talk.

And hell, not many bands deliver two near-perfect records and a glorious EP to boot. It’s a fine legacy, one built on celestial harmonies and earthy, timeless songs. I still consider the self-titled Fleet Foxes album to be one of the finest records of my lifetime. Could a new album even live up? Would it be the curse of the Difficult Third Record, destined to be admired from a distance but never loved?

Crack-Up, that decidedly weird and complicated third record, is in fact all of those things. It is absolutely the band’s Difficult Third, but it’s also a textbook case of how to embrace that cliché while doing it right. Virtually nothing about Crack-Up is easy. It contains long, multi-part songs, some separated by slashes (like opener “I Am All That I Need/Arroyo Seco/The Thumbprint Scar”), some spread out over adjacent tracks. Pecknold’s penchant for writing indelible, timeless melodies has not exactly been pushed aside, but has been relegated to second place behind the obvious joy he takes in stretching his prog-folk orchestrations as far as they can go.

And they go very far indeed. The scratchy, almost inaudible opening of the album begins a crescendo that breaks with the gigantic clarinets-and-piano ending of second track, “Cassius, -“ which, as the title indicates, segues directly into its sweet second half on track three, “- Naiads, Cassiades.” The track titles aren’t hiding quick and clever pop tunes behind them – they’re appropriate for the gorgeous, patient, study-worthy music Pecknold has written.

Crack-Up, even more than the first two Fleet Foxes records, needs and deserves to be heard as a whole. The way the rolling piano of “Kept Woman” picks up perfectly from the pitched-down guitar at the end of the prior track is seamless. By the time you’re through the nearly nine-minute “Third of May/Odaigahara,” the fifth winding and tricky song in a row, you’re ready for something simpler, and right on cue, here is the beautiful plainsong “If You Need To, Keep Time on Me.” It does exactly what it’s supposed to, at exactly the right place in the album.

There’s no doubt, though, that over 55 minutes, this level of complexity can get wearying. Pecknold and his bandmates still deliver those woodsy, men-out-of-time harmonies, and they are still perfect – they take your hand and guide you when the melodies get too obscure. But this is the kind of album that will find you needing an anchor, something to hang your brain on. The second half is marginally more immediate, particularly the stunning “On Another Ocean,” but the concluding title track brings back the multitude of instruments, the ebb and flow of the musical tide that marks this record. Occasionally the song will drop from full orchestration to nearly empty spoken word and then crash back again, horns wailing. It’s mammoth, almost too much to absorb.

Given all that, does Crack-Up add to the Fleet Foxes legacy, or take it down a blind alley? If you’re like me, you’ll find it hard to say after the first few listens. But I have the unmistakable feeling that this album will only grow more rewarding as I listen further. It’s definitely their Difficult Third Record, but even at this early stage, I feel like it’s a bit of a masterpiece, and I look forward to learning more about it.

If you think Crack-Up is complicated, you may want to buckle in for Planetarium, our other contestant this week. This one is positively brain-melting. I’ve heard it four times, and I still don’t quite have it mapped out in my head. I just know that it’s utterly brilliant.

Of course, an album like this could only come from Sufjan Stevens, perhaps the finest musical mind of my generation. It is also ostensibly a collaboration with Bryce Dessner of the National, string arranger Nico Mulhy and multi-instrumentalist and producer James McAllister, and while I hear all of them in this thing to varying degrees (with the blessed exception of Dessner), the dominant force here is undoubtedly Stevens. Planetarium follows nicely from his Age of Adz experimentalism, mixed with his penchant for delirious melodies and multi-part orchestral suites.

But this is no retread. Written and refined over a period of years, the music on Planetarium goes further out than Stevens ever has. Framed as an exploration of our solar system and featuring songs for every planet (and Pluto!), the cosmic backdrop gives Stevens and his collaborators license to go supernova – some parts of this record leap further into the electropocalypse than even Age of Adz, and some parts are head-spinning progressive orchestral wonderamas. And some sections are so beautiful that I won’t have adequate words for them.

What is it like to listen to? Imagine being on a roller coaster that plunges underwater at random intervals, forcing you to pay attention and hold your breath at a moment’s notice. Every few seconds, there’s something new, some fresh hairpin turn, some moment that you swear is the best moment yet. And then seconds later, here comes another one. There are extraordinary epics here, like “Jupiter” and “Uranus” and the jittery, unbelievable “Earth,” and you’ll come back to those more than once, but there are also immediate pieces of gorgeous songcraft like “Saturn” and the delightful album-closing “Mercury.” While Planetarium can sometimes leave you lost in space, it always brings you back around.

There are some portions of Planetarium that even after four listens still befuddle me. The early stretches of “Mars,” for example, or the lovely yet too-long ambient pieces “Black Energy” and “Sun,” which stop the album’s momentum dead. But even those moments feel like they’re purposeful, that they fit into a larger vision. The lyrics are similarly head-scratching, as Stevens often is, but even more so this time. Much of it seems to be wrestling with God and our place in the universe – standard topics for Stevens – but enough of it is indecipherable that I can only hope that repeated listens will make it clear.

As you can tell, I’m barely beginning my journey with Planetarium, and already I know it’s like nothing else I own. I’m swept away by it, stunned into silence by its complexity and yet able to lose myself in it at the same time. This is a lot of music – 76 minutes, and it rarely slows down for you, throwing you new ideas at a feverish pace. But if you’re looking for music that takes you places and leaves you with the unmistakable sense that you have been somewhere else, and now you are not the same, then this is for you. It’s a lot to take in, but its rewards are many, and they will no doubt unfold over years and years.

Next week, it’s a songwriters’ paradise with Ani Difranco, Jason Isbell and Matthew Sweet. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Well look at me, I’m forty-three.

I actually took a week off for my birthday this year. I never do that. I’ve promised both you and myself that I will do that every year for at least the last ten, but I don’t think I ever have. I may call it a tradition from now on, because it was surprisingly refreshing and revitalizing. If the day ever comes when I end this column, whether from exhaustion or simply running out of time to write it each week, I may look back on this delightful week off as the beginning of the end.

Don’t worry, though. I still feel like I have plenty to say, and lord knows the torrent of new music is not slowing down. I’m going to try the same experiment I tried in October of last year – a month of columns full of shorter, more to-the-point reviews. June is full to bursting with new tunes, and just out of necessity I have to start with a couple that came out last month, so I’m going to try to say fewer words about each of these records and make the words I do say count more. We’ll see how I do.

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My birthday has, of course, brought with it the usual reflection on my life, accompanied by the usual wish to be 17 again. Don’t get me wrong – if offered, I probably wouldn’t go back and live my twenties again. They weren’t my favorite years, and I’m actually quite happy in my forties. But what I miss sometimes is that fire I used to have, that ability to pursue projects until they were a reality. I miss the way I could once get through an entire week without feeling tired at the end.

I do think some of my teenage drive came from the music I listened to. And when I put that music on now, I feel the same optimism and idealism that defined my best days as a teen. Sure, I was a metalhead in those years, with a long curly mullet and a firm belief that Megadeth’s Rust in Peace was the pinnacle of artistic achievement, but it was during that phase that I also discovered some of my most enduring favorites. And perhaps the most enduring of them all has been the Alarm.

Let’s just get this out of the way: I am never going to hate the Alarm. They mean too much to me. My friend Chris Callaway, who very kindly mentioned me more than once in his book of interviews with rock stars, got me into the Welsh foursome by lending me Eye of the Hurricane when we were both 14, and it shone new light on my world. It was everything I loved about U2 with a more pop sensibility, and even then I appreciated a great melody more than anything else.

The original Alarm released five studio albums and a bunch of other material, and I love all of it. They morphed from an acoustic punk band to a melodic rock band and then headed in a bluesier, crunchier direction before calling it quits in 1991. Nine years later, frontman Mike Peters reformed the band with new musicians and started its second chapter, and the Alarm been a powerhouse since.

It was in this later incarnation that the Alarm broke free from the U2-isms that had always dogged them. Mike Peters still sings like Bono, with all the passion and fire he can muster each time out, but he started bringing in louder punk influences, and with 2008’s tremendous Counter Attack (an 8-CD box set of new material), captured the spirit of one of U2’s earliest inspirations, the Clash. They sounded alive, vital, hungry, ready for anything.

Which is why it’s somewhat disheartening that Peters has gone back to U2-land with Blood Red, the Alarm’s first record of new material in nine years. Blood Red is the first of at least two new records coming down the pike, and while it’s good, it doesn’t quite rise up to the bar they’ve set for themselves, and it doesn’t make me particularly jazzed for the second installment.

Now look, I’m never going to hate the Alarm, and these ten anthems still stir the soul. Peters sounds older, which of course he is, but given his fight (and his wife’s fight) against cancer in recent years, he doesn’t sound nearly as beaten down by life as you might expect. “Coming Backwards” includes every Alarm cliché, including Peters’ wailing harmonica, and it all still works. “There Must Be a Way” is a low-key fist pump, a song that could have been written in the band’s early days, recorded a bit slower than younger Peters would have done it, with a few more synthesizers and a bit less energy. But it still sounds like the Alarm.

And if that’s all you need, Blood Red is going to do it for you. The best stuff comes in the middle – “Time” is a deep, dark excursion, “Love and Understanding” basically rewrites “Strength” for 2017, and “Brighter Than the Sun” is a minor-key mid-tempo thing, reminiscent of “Scarlet” from 1989’s Change. Outside those three and the classic Bono-style ballad “No Greater Love,” Peters struggles for inspiration, but he always sounds like Mike Peters – older but unbowed, and still itching for a fight. For most of this album, that’s enough.

Find the Alarm online here: www.thealarm.com

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I’ve bought a lot of music recently, but one thing I haven’t bought is the new mix of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I feel like I ought to, but I’ve bought Sgt. Pepper four times now in various formats, and even though it’s one of my very favorite records, I’m not sure I need to buy it again, particularly with all the potentially fantastic new records coming out. But that doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate its birthday. I’m just more than seven years younger than Sgt. Pepper – the album turned 50 on May 26. The magic of Sgt. Pepper is that in many ways, we’re still catching up with it.

I discovered the Beatles in junior high, which I think is about the same time everyone discovers them. There’s a short list of bands that everyone finds out about in junior high or high school – Led Zeppelin, for instance, or Simon and Garfunkel. The big one, though, seems to be Pink Floyd. I play in the band at my church, and our guitarist is a 15-year-old kid who loves Floyd. He plays “Money” and “Wish You Were Here” like they were new songs, and it always makes me nostalgic, because I discovered them around the same time.

Of course, by the time I got there, they were the David Gilmour Band, soloing their way through A Momentary Lapse of Reason. I remember the first time I heard Roger Waters sing – I jumped right into The Wall next on a recommendation – and I wasn’t impressed. Who was this shouty guy? Where was the far more melodious Gilmour? What about the guitar solos? It didn’t take long for me to come around. By the time I’d delved into his solo work, I was a Roger Waters fan.

So when Amused to Death hit during my freshman year of college, I was ready for it. Basically a rant in album form, Amused is the one where all of Waters’ sonic and social interests collided, painting a dark picture of a world addicted to digital experiences and devoid of human ones. It was basically the ultimate Roger Waters album. Amused was so good that I thought we’d never see another one out of him. He’d basically said what he came here to say.

Thankfully, I was wrong. Twenty-five years after Amused to Death, here is Waters’ fourth solo album, Is This the Life We Really Want. In most ways, this is a sequel to Amused – Waters worked with Nigel Godrich here, the man behind every Radiohead album for the last 20 years, and he creates a very Roger Waters atmosphere, full of ambient interludes and big string arrangements and stabbing guitar accents and Pink Floyd-style keyboards. It’s a patient album, a slow one, but in its best moments, it’s a remarkably powerful one.

Lyrically, this record is mainly what you’d expect, if not more so. Waters is 73 years old now, and this is even more of a cranky old man rant than Amused was. Much of this was either written very recently, or tied in retroactively with Trump’s election – “A leader with no fucking brains,” Waters sings on “Picture That,” lyrics that are transposed over a photo of Dear Leader in the liner notes. “Every time a young girl’s life is casually spent, and every time a nincompoop becomes the president,” he spits out on the title track, essentially a litany of society’s ills.

I am all about Roger Waters ripping modern life to shreds, so I enjoyed every second of his venomous invective. But he does something even more interesting here, something that sets this record above all of his other solo work to me: he juxtaposes his descriptions of the crumbling world with an examination of a crumbling relationship. Waters’ emotional vulnerability, his genuine regret, give these songs (and by extension, the album) a weight that they might not have had otherwise.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the final three songs, which together form a gorgeous little suite. “Wait for Her” and “Oceans Apart” are poetic love songs, and the finale, “Part of Me Died,” shows how much he has grown. “When I laid eyes on her, a part of me died,” he sings, listing off the qualities he no longer wants to feel: cold-hearted, devious, greedy, mischievous, global, colonial, bloodthirsty and blind. The message, of course, is that love is the answer, love is the way out of the mess we’re in, the way to find the life we really want. But Waters delivers that message with such delicate honesty that it lands. It’s my favorite moment of his career.

Is This the Life We Really Want is an event. It may very well be the last record of Roger Waters’ life, and if so, he’s gone out with a stunner. There are so many moments throughout this work that brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. It’s another rant in album form, make no mistake, but it’s probably his best rant, and there’s a twist in the tale that takes it to another level. I’m not sure what I was expecting 25 years later, but Waters delivered.

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Shorter and to the point, huh? Wow, do I suck at this. Regardless, I have one more record to tell you about, and as it’s one of my favorites of the year, I need to tell you about it now. It also illustrates that while I’m always excited to hear from artists I’ve loved for years, I’m equally excited to find new acts that thrill me.

Husky thrills me. I have my friend Rob Hale to thank for turning me on to this Australian band. They’re exactly the kind of melodic folksy rock band I adore, and namesake Husky Gawenda’s songs are unfailingly terrific, twisting and turning while remaining as catchy and infectious as possible. Their first two albums were revelations, and their just-released third, Punchbuzz, is easily as good, and better in a lot of ways. One day, Husky is going to make a bad record. This is not that day.

Punchbuzz is a different kind of Husky album, but one that nudges its evolution forward without forgetting what brought them to the dance. It’s a more plugged-in work, with programmed drums and keyboards and chiming, ringing electric guitar all over the place. A song like “Shark Fin” barrels forward with remarkable confidence, the band taking on this propulsive new sound like it’s second nature. “Late Night Store” is a stunner, shrouded in shadow, making full use of the new, fuller production.

But they don’t sound like a totally different band, and there are two reasons for that – Gawenda’s distinctive, even voice and his songs. The songs are uniformly excellent here, a little darker than they’ve been before but still rippling with melody, still tight and beautiful. The band indulges in an atmospheric jam at the end of the grand “Cut the Air,” and it is the first moment on a Husky album that sounds like it wasn’t mapped out in its entirety. Their trademark sure-footedness is all over this album.

They even save some surprises for the end. “Flower Drum” is as far-out as they’ve gone, sonically speaking – it takes the new wave dive, the way Keane did on Perfect Symmetry. And it’s awesome, zipping through its insidious chorus at a trot. Closer “Space Between Heartbeats,” similarly, pulls out the spacey keyboard drones and Phil Collins electronic pitter-patter, then augments them with pedal steel guitars. It shouldn’t work, but it does, wonderfully.

From the first time I heard them, Husky has been one of those tell-everyone bands for me. Punchbuzz has only solidified their stature. They’ll make a bad record someday, although I can’t imagine it. For now, though, they’ve made three great ones, and I cannot recommend all of them highly enough.

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Next week, I’ll try my best to actually write short reviews. I’ll have a ton to choose from, including Fleet Foxes, Ani DiFranco, Jason Isbell, Phoenix and Sufjan Stevens’ Planetarium project. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.