This week’s obituary belongs to Charles Bradley. (It seems like we get one of these a week now, doesn’t it?)

Despite singing and performing from an early age, Bradley didn’t make his name until he was discovered in the 2000s by Bosco Mann of Daptone Records. (Daptone is famous for giving us Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.) He released his first album, No Time for Dreaming, on Daptone at the age of 62. And you could hear the weight of those years in his rich, raw voice. He served up two more albums, both swell, before succumbing to stomach cancer on Sept. 23. He was 68.

And when I finish writing this, I’m going to watch Soul of America, and let him sing to me one more time. Rest in peace, Charles.

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Under the gun this week, and I didn’t listen to much, so I think I’m going to do one review and my Third Quarter Report and call it a day. On Saturday my laboratory held our largest public event in 20 years, and it was a bear to plan – it took more than a year – and execute. I’m pretty worn out.

But let me tell you about what’s been exciting me this week. It’s the new record from Marah in the Mainsail, and it’s out next week, but those of us who supported it on Kickstarter have it now. And it’s awesome.

Marah in the Mainsail is one of my favorite AudioFeed discoveries. They played the festival in 2014, ripping through songs from their debut EP and premiering a couple numbers from their in-progress first album, Thaumatrope. I’m not even sure how to explain Marah. They’re dark and cinematic, pulling from centuries-old folk traditions, but updating them with a tidal-wave force, like the Decemberists turned up to 11. During the band’s best moments, singer Austin Durry’s howl is barely in check, the drums are flailing and the horns blaring.

Marah uses instruments like horns to paint pictures and conjure atmospheres, usually bleak ones. Their music is about struggle, internal and external, and often uses mythical beasts as metaphors. One of their best, “Wendigo,” is about a character negotiating with the monster within, but preparing to lose. It’s fantastic stuff.

Given their widescreen sound, it’s no surprise to me that their second album, Bone Crown, is exponentially more ambitious than their first. It’s a concept record, telling a dark fairy tale over 11 songs, a story about a forest ruled by a duplicitous fox who stole the crown from the rightful king, a noble white stag, and the efforts of an all-seeing owl and a prodigal bear to restore justice. Each song is accompanied by a short chapter of the story, read by Dan Smith of Listener, and it’s packaged in some gorgeous artwork. It’s quite a package.

And the music? It’s next-level Marah. Every song here sounds like them, but it’s all bigger and more intricately arranged, and it all works together to spin this tale. Every song works in tandem, and stands alone. The powerhouse drums and horns on “Everybody Knows” stand out – hell, they kick you in the face – and the killer chorus of “Fisticuffs” is an early highlight. On “Leviathan” the band achieves something they’ve been aiming for since their first EP: a crescendo that carries the song to another plane entirely by the end. It concludes the opening salvo of this record, as strong a one-two-three-four punch as I’ve heard in some time.

The middle section of Bone Crown is lighter musically, if not lyrically – it depicts a flashback showing the violent steps the fox took to get his crown. Mariah Mercedes takes lead vocals here, and her airy voice adds an ethereal feel to the proceedings. “The Great Beyond” is a stunner, a waltz about death that plays like some strange mix of Kate Bush and Tom Waits. The horns here are mesmerizing, and the skipping coda is a black delight.

The band roars back in for the third act, in which the vicious fox burns down the forest. The title track is a killer, Durry spitting out “burn the woods, burn them slow, burn the trees down, burn the bones” as the band makes an almighty racket behind him. The bloodcurdling scream near the end will stay with you. “Black Mamba” is awesome, slithering through its catchy chorus on a great bass line. The story ends, fittingly, with “The End,” in which the bear, the sole survivor of the fire, commits himself to rebuilding. In the end, it’s a story about how we never choose the disasters around us, but we can choose to help fix them.

Seriously, it’s awesome. Bone Crown is 40 minutes long, and every time I’ve heard it, it buzzes by in what feels like half that time. But it also contains multitudes – I’m hearing new things each time through, and it feels like three albums’ worth of work went into it. I’m impressed and amazed, and grateful to have found this band. You can be grateful too, by following this link. You won’t regret it. Bone Crown is one of my favorite things in an already fantastic year, and is sure to rate highly come December.

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Speaking of, it’s time for the Third Quarter Report. This list was more difficult than any I can remember. This year has brought so much good stuff, and everything you see below could change based on how I feel in a couple months. For now, though, here’s what my top 10 list looks like, nine months in

10. Husky, Punchbuzz.
9. Marah in the Mainsail, Bone Crown.
8. Slowdive.
7. Kesha, Rainbow.
6. Neil Finn, Out of Silence.
5. Brand New, Science Fiction.
4. Manchester Orchestra, A Black Mile to the Surface.
3. Planetarium.
2. Jonathan Coulton, Solid State.
1. Aimee Mann, Mental Illness.

Leaving Jason Isbell off this list hurts, especially since The Nashville Sound may be his best record. But these are the ten I have listened to most, and loved the most completely. As you can probably tell, I listened to the top three again, moving Planetarium down below the Mann/Coulton songwriting showcase. Nobody does it like Aimee Mann, but Coulton came awfully close.

Next week, I’m sure I will have to revise this list again when Derek Webb’s Fingers Crossed comes out. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

We lost Grant Hart this week.

For those old enough to remember, like me, Hart was one of the most influential musicians of his day. As the drummer and one of the creative powerhouses in Husker Du, Hart helped revitalize punk in the ‘80s and then launch a whole army of loud alternative rock bands. They were the missing link between Black Flag and R.E.M., between punk and the more hummable rock emerging from college stations around the country, and were tireless champions of both melody and fire. It’s safe to say that the ‘90s wouldn’t have happened the way they did without Husker Du.

While Bob Mould tends to get the lion’s share of the credit for Husker Du, Hart’s songs were easily the equal of Mould’s, and were often the more melodically rich ones, and his voice often the more interesting one. Following the band’s breakup, Hart worked with a new band called Nova Mob and put out some great yet forgotten solo records, including 2013’s conceptual piece The Argument. Recently, Hart joined his bandmates for the first time since the ‘80s to put together a collection of early work called Savage Young Du, which comes out next month.

Sadly, that will be the last project the three members collaborate on. Hart died on Sept. 13 after a bout with liver cancer. He was 56 years old.

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And good lord, did I once think of 56 as old? I did. The idea of only having 13 more years to live is terrifying to me. The truth, of course, is that no one knows how long we will have. Each one of us could be taken tomorrow, or told that we have mere months, instead of the decades we imagine. (I did just start watching Breaking Bad, which might be influencing these thoughts.) I once laughed at the idea of dying young instead of growing old, but now I am firmly on the side of growing as old as possible.

Rock and roll seems to be growing old with me, which is nice in one way, but sad in another. I’m not the guy to make bold pronouncements about styles of music dying out, but if you can name a truly outstanding rock and roll band from the last 15 years, please let me know. I mean real rock, like freight-train-roaring-down-the-track-with-its-brake-lines-cut rock. I honestly can’t name any.

It’s telling, I think, that the best rock band in the world right now might be Pearl Jam, a group rapidly rounding the bases toward its 30th year. (Why yes, I am listening to their live album from Wrigley Field, why do you ask?) It’s also telling that when I suggest that Pearl Jam is the best rock band in the world right now, the one act fired back as a counter-argument is usually Foo Fighters. They formed in 1994, and Dave Grohl, their mastermind and leader, is 48.

I do find it delightful that two generations of kids now only know of Nirvana as Grohl’s old band. Foo Fighters has rightly taken center stage in Grohl’s career arc, and for all of the band’s existence, they’ve been plying the same trade – guitar-centric melodic rock, like a steak dinner with a beer to wash it down. And if their ninth album, Concrete and Gold, is any indication, that sound is wearing thin.

Everything about Concrete and Gold screams “here’s another Foo Fighters album.” They’ve long since passed the AC/DC barrier – everything they do sounds the same. If you like that sound, and find new things in it whenever it’s presented to you, you’ll probably like Concrete and Gold. There’s a sense of the epic about it, and Greg Kurstin, producer to the stars, does a fine job of gussying these songs up. The slithering riff of “Make It Right” and the expansive feel of “The Sky is a Neighborhood” are appealing, but as the record goes on, it’s clear that there aren’t too many ideas here, and Kurstin is working overtime to shape something out of this.

By the time you get to the pretty lame “Happy Ever After (Zero Hour),” the album becomes more of a chore to get through than anything else. On this evidence, it would be hard for me to consider Foo Fighters a great rock band, let alone one of the best in the world. I don’t want to suggest that Concrete and Gold is terrible. But it is pretty average, merely here to extend the life of the band, not to justify it.

But what’s an aging musician to do when the kids don’t flock to you anymore? I guess they form supergroups, like Prophets of Rage. But they really shouldn’t.

Prophets of Rage features the three instrumentalists from Rage Against the Machine – inventive guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk – with Chuck D of Public Enemy and B-Real of Cypress Hill. Chuck D is 57 years old, Morello is 53, and the rest of the band is in their late 40s. So expecting them to recapture their glory days is perhaps a bit unfair.

That said, Prophets of Rage, the band’s debut, sounds pretty much exactly like you’d expect it to. The Rage-style one-riff rockers are firmly in place, Chuck D’s rhymes are energetic and on point, and even B-Real sounds 100 percent into this. The lyrics lash out at Trump and his America, and man, do we need some resistance music. I’m pretty fond of “Unfuck the World,” and “Hail to the Chief” is exactly as biting as you’d hope.

I just wish this didn’t all sound like 1993. Rage Against the Machine was a one-of-a-kind band, a brief burst of youthful political energy. Public Enemy’s run of records in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s are untouchable, some of the finest angry hip-hop ever made. It may not be fair to rank this album next to the finest achievements of the Prophets themselves, but they’re the reason I bought this. The band is even named after a Public Enemy classic. This should feel vital and new, like an explosive combination, and instead it sounds like a tribute to years gone by.

I certainly don’t want to make it sound like older musicians just can’t rock, and only have two choices: acoustic folk music, or the retirement home. I don’t believe that, and I have a great example that proves it: Living Colour. The band’s been around since 1984, and its four members have clocked 225 years between them. And yet, they rock like you wouldn’t believe.

If you’d like to believe it, you just need to pick up their new album, Shade. This thing is a goddamn powerhouse. It’s only their sixth in 30-plus years as a band, and it comes eight years after their last one, but they haven’t lost an ounce of their presence and force. Sometime in those eight years, they developed a love for the blues, and Shade adds a generous helping of the Delta to an already potent sound. But this is no old-school record, either – there’s a smattering of electronic percussion, and a full dose of holy-hell rock.

Can we talk for a second about how amazing Corey Glover is? His voice is still so powerful, his range so extraordinary. His vocals push Shade forward at every opportunity – they’re huge and soulful and confident. And they’d have to be, to lead a band this immense. Vernon Reid has long been one of the best rock guitarists alive, blistering yet dexterous, with a jazz edge. And nothing bad can be said about Will Calhoun and Doug Wimbish, a rhythm section many bands would kill for. They’re the whole package, and when it comes together on stunners like “Pattern in Time” and “Glass Teeth,” it’s wonderful.

The three covers on Shade show off the band’s range of influences, which they work to connect on this record. They deliver a pummeling take on Robert Johnson’s “Preachin’ Blues,” a simmering version of Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues,” and then, out of nowhere, an amazing knock-down run through Biggie’s “Who Shot Ya.” Throughout this record the band leavens in blues, soul and rap, never forgetting the pure rock foundation.

It’s been nearly 30 years since Living Colour emerged with the instant classic “Cult of Personality,” and they’ve only gotten better with age. If, by some chance, a new generation of rock bands decide to pull themselves out of the muck and carry the torch, it’s good to know that Living Colour will be here to show them how it’s done.

Next week, the Third Quarter Report, and probably a review or two. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

If you’d told me back in 1997 that one day, Kesha would make a better album than Tori Amos, I would have said, “Who’s Kesha?” I mean, she was seven years old then.

But the point stands. Twenty years ago, Tori Amos was one of the most vital musicians on the planet. Her third album, Boys for Pele, was messier and angrier and all-around more fascinating than her immortal first two, Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink. In 1997, Amos seemed incapable of creating music that wasn’t intensely emotional, wasn’t like listening to her soul cry out, either in anguish or exultation. Every line, every word, every sky-high note felt not only like she meant it, but like she had no choice but to play and sing it.

Those first three albums remain fast favorites. Not a year goes by when I don’t pull them out and bask in them all over again. (The recently released deluxe remasters provided a nice excuse.) They’re perfect. And I want to live in the alternate universe where she stopped there, refusing to make music that didn’t live up to that unstoppable trilogy. Unfortunately, I live in this one, where Amos kept going and going, her returns diminishing and diminishing.

There have been bright spots since. I liked most of 1999’s To Venus and Back, her deep dive into electronica. I heard traces of the old Tori fire on 2007’s American Doll Posse. I thought 2011’s orchestral experiment, Night of Hunters, was quite good. And I enjoyed much of 2014’s Unrepentant Geraldines, which I almost referred to as a return to form. But the best of these records, meaning the best songs Amos has released in 20 years, don’t hold a candle to her first three for emotional resonance. I don’t really remember much of American Doll Posse, ten years on, and I think that’s the best record she’s made since Pele.

And yet, I live in hope. I keep buying Tori Amos albums, despite the fact that I haven’t loved one in two decades. I feel like fans of a hard-luck baseball team, saying “maybe next time” over and over. But hell, the Cubs won the World Series last year after more than a century, so anything’s possible. So I pay my money and I take my chance, every time. Because I believe she can still make music that moves me.

Sadly, on the just-released Native Invader, she’s only succeeded in boring me. The title of this, her fifteenth album, led me to expect something with teeth. But Native Invader just sort of… happens, slowly and meanderingly, like the worst parts of Scarlet’s Walk stripped of any urgency. Some of it is pretty, like a portrait of flowers in a waiting room. Much of it is merely pleasant, and all of it is forgettable.

I don’t want to suggest that this isn’t a well-made record. It cuts a nice compromise between Amos’ organic and electronic music, relying mostly on her electric piano and Mark Aladdin’s guitars to ground her programmed drums and bass lines. The songs are all too long, but if you can pay attention without drifting off, some of them have nice structures. The whole thing sounds polished and fussed over, tweaked and re-tweaked over the two years she was working on it.

But it’s soulless. Amos’ vocals are mixed low and there just for utility – she sings these songs, but she doesn’t embody them, doesn’t live them. I still like what she says here. “Broken Arrow” takes aim at colonialism, “Up the Creek” (the only song with a pulse) fires at “those climate-blind,” and “Bang” delivers a “we are all stardust” message of unity. But when she sings them, over this bland and wandering music, I don’t care. I have listened to all 68 minutes of Native Invader three times now, and I just don’t care about it.

Are there things about it I like? Sure. Opener “Reindeer King” is seven minutes of Tori and her piano, and it conjures up a nicely foreboding atmosphere. The other two stripped-back songs, “Breakaway” and “Climb,” are highlights, even if they feel like they would have been b-sides back in the ‘90s. “Up the Creek” is pretty swell, its electronic bass announcing itself early. (Real strings would have made this a keeper.) I like the prog-rock excess at the end of “Bang,” and the melodic twist of the key line in “Cloud Riders.” One of the bonus tracks is a sequel to “Upside Down,” an amazing early song, and while it doesn’t measure up at all, it’s still nice. (Its hook line is seriously “we gotta turn that frown upside down,” though.)

It isn’t enough, though. Native Invader is another boring disappointment from an artist I once revered. I still admire her, and I will keep buying her music until one of us dies. And I will likely go through this same ritual every couple years, getting my hopes up and then slogging through whatever she puts out, my spirits falling with every note. Because when it comes to Tori Amos, I’m like Fox Mulder. I have no evidence that her new music will awaken that spark in me and resonate like her early work does, but man, I want to believe.

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Speaking of wanting to believe, I really want to believe that Play Dead, the eerily-titled and just-released fifth Mutemath album, will not be their last.

Even if it isn’t, Play Dead will likely be the final album from the band I’ve come to know as Mutemath over the past thirteen years. In the months before its release, both guitarist Roy Mitchell-Cardenas and drummer Darren King announced their departure from the band, leaving only pianist/singer Paul Meany from the original lineup. If you know Mutemath you know that King, especially, is central to their identity. I know many people who only recognize Mutemath as “that band with the awesome drummer,” and now he’s gone.

Play Dead, then, stands as the final testament from this incarnation of the band. Meany has brought in new musicians and is soldiering on, but I expect future albums, if there are any, to basically be Meany solo efforts. That particular chemistry between the original band members will be gone. I’m thankful, though, that it’s all over this new record. Play Dead brings together everything Mutemath does well and wraps it all up in a newfound propensity for prog-rock.

The Mutemathers have been working on Play Dead for five years. The sessions got so intense that, partway through, they took a break and recorded an entirely different album, 2015’s Vitals. I have a complex relationship with that record – I dismissed it at first as synth-laden fluff, but couldn’t put it away, and ended up adoring it. Vitals sounded little like the Mutemath I first fell in love with, but over time I fell for this new sound too, and now I consider it one of my favorites.

My appreciation for Vitals helped me grasp and enjoy Play Dead right away. This one isn’t going to need a period of adjustment – I’m into it right now. The synth-heavy sound is still in evidence, but it’s harder and heavier, and in service of songs that are trickier and meatier. I’ve been trying to think of a term to describe what the band has conjured up here. Maybe dance-prog? That fits songs like “Break the Fever,” which combines a complex, Yes-like arrangement with the hookiness of Hall and Oates.

Mostly, though, Play Dead sounds like this immensely talented band finding yet another unique new sound and exploring it to its limit. I can definitely see Vitals as a chance to blow off steam in the middle of this thing – Play Dead is massive. Opener “Hit Parade” starts with a quiet keys-and-vocals introduction, but soon explodes into a Black Keys-style riff (played on synths, of course) and a glorious sunrise of harmonies. “War” is a powerhouse, King nailing his drums over a big, almost bluesy mass. And then the strings come in. Even a quiet song like “Nuisance,” which wafts in and out on a delicate keyboard heartbeat, builds to almost towering proportions in the middle, melodies cresting like waves.

So it goes for most of this huge record, the band playing as if they’ll never get the chance again. A trifle like “Placed On Hold” erupts in its final third, the live energy practically bursting from it. “Everything’s New” shimmies confidently through its well-earned six minutes, including one of the band’s trademark instrumental interludes. Closer “Marching to the End” (and come on, this is their last record) begins as a ballad and crescendos into an anthem, much like “Remain” from Vitals.

It’s awesome, is what I’m saying, and yet it’s awesome in a totally new way for this band. It’s been quite a ride over the past decade-plus – I remember seeing Mutemath at the 2004 Cornerstone Festival and loving every second of their manic, pop-prog set, and being blown away by the Police-like first album in 2006. Every album since then has been a big step, either forward or sideways, and they’ve never let me down. (At least, not for long.) If Play Dead is the last Mutemath record, they went out doing what they do best – stepping out into the unknown and building something new. Very few bands do that well, and I’ll miss this one.

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Next week, Foo Fighters and Bruce Cockburn and a couple others. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

A couple weeks ago I shared an old-man rant in this space about downloads and how I still prefer CDs.

So it’s only fair that I spend an equal amount of time this week talking about how amazing this brave new world can be, and exploring one of the many miracles of our instantaneous culture. (Of course, in the process, I’m going to be praising a 59-year-old man, so don’t think I’m suddenly down with the youth or anything.)

My case in point: I am right now listening to Out of Silence, the fourth solo album by Neil Finn, he of Split Enz and Crowded House fame. Eleven days ago, not a single note of this record existed. On Friday, August 25, Finn and an expansive band (including a choir and a small orchestra) recorded all ten of these songs live in a studio, and simulcast the sessions on the internet. Anyone who wanted to follow along and watch the process could do so. The whole session took four and a half hours.

And one week later, the finished, mixed and mastered album was on sale. This meets my definition of a miracle. In eight days, Out of Silence went from an idea in Finn’s head to a commercially available piece of music, from something only one man could fully enjoy to something that can enrich all our lives. And that’s only possible because of the internet. (The album is available to download, with hard copy versions coming over the next two months.)

The beauty of the live recording session was that it brought Finn’s worldwide audience together over a moment in time. Those who watched it unfold were part of the magic. In the three weeks leading up to the Out of Silence session, Finn went live on the internet to broadcast rehearsals and jam sessions, inviting his audience in ever closer, building a small community around these glimpses into his space and his songwriting. It was a clever and touching way to build excitement for the album, and to express something profound: this technology that is supposed to bring us closer rarely does, but here’s a way it can live up to that promise.

Here’s the thing that knocks me out about this record, though: it’s not something you’d expect to be captured live. It’s not a three-chord guitar-rock jam session, not something simple that can be banged out in four hours easily. Out of Silence is Finn’s most beautiful record, a complex set of chamber-pop songs with gorgeous, delicate arrangements. It sounds labored over, elaborately put together. This took a lot of rehearsal, of course, for these 30-some musicians to learn this material and perform it so immaculately.

This album completes Finn’s evolution from guitar-slinging rock troubadour to orchestral pop composer – there are only two songs with drums, and only one of those sounds like the skipping singalongs Finn made with his former bands. Finn’s primary instrument here is the piano, and his songs are slow and meditative, concerned with moments of transcendence rather than immediacy. These songs take time to work their way in, but once you know the map of them, they’re phenomenal. In retrospect, this is the road Finn has been on at least since Crowded House’s Time on Earth, and this album puts a lot of his more recent work into perspective.

I have no qualms about calling Neil Finn one of the world’s best living songwriters. Just listen to the extraordinary piano-strings ballad “More Than One of You.” Its melody is surprising, uplifting, perfectly arranged for the choir. That tiny bridge with the single ethereal violin part? Perfection. “Chameleon Days” is one of the most propulsive, its xylophone melody complementing the drums and tympani and low brass. It’s dark – “Anyone can tell you that it’s out of our hands, God is rolling numbers while we’re making our plans” – but its moments of light are well-timed and gorgeous.

“Independence Day” is amazing, its gossamer acoustic picking supporting surges of strings before the simple, beautiful refrain steps in. It’s a song about storms rolling in, and then rolling away, and the music follows suit. Even a tiny reverie like “Alone” sounds like strolling down a city street after the rain, so wonderful is its arrangement. And when Finn bites off a true masterwork like “Widow’s Peak,” possibly the most epic song about walking a dog ever written, it’s a wonder to behold.

There’s no doubt why the big-deal pop song “Second Nature” is the single. It sounds like little else here, with its marching drum beat and catchy chorus, but I’m glad it’s here. It’s a great, great little song. (The lyrics to “Second Nature” changed between the rehearsal and the recording session, which shows how close to the bone Finn was playing this.) The record’s one speed bump is a noble one: “The Law is Always On Your Side” is a Lennon-esque lament for a man wrongly killed by police, and its lyric is a little too obvious. On the other hand, this is the first time I’ve ever criticized a Neil Finn lyric for being too obvious, so I’m sure it’s exactly what he wanted.

More true to form is the gorgeous closer, “I Know Different.” A song about healing a relationship, “I Know Different” ebbs and flows like the sea, and concludes with a stunning, rising coda that ends with a sharp moment of hope. It’s perfect, one of my favorite Neil Finn songs. It was also the last one recorded, and seriously, just go to about four hours and 25 minutes into the video and watch Finn’s face as the song concludes. He knows he nailed it, he knows he’s just finished an emotional journey and come out the other side with one of his best records. And we all get to share in that moment.

Aside from how it was created, Out of Silence is a beautiful little record, one that is content to bloom in small, subtle ways. The best word to describe it is “intimate,” which makes the process of its birth even more fitting. It’s small, but seismic, and it fills me with hope that even now, at 59, Finn is just getting started.

You can order Out of Silence at www.neilfinn.com. You can see the session that created it here.

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In my world, Neil Finn’s gorgeous little album is a big event. In the world outside my world, though, the biggest thing happening in music this week is the return of LCD Soundsystem.

To be honest, I’ve never understood the big deal about James Murphy and his project. It’s good stuff – the three original LCD Soundsystem albums are fun, sarcastic, danceable things about the anxieties of growing old and out of touch, and I definitely enjoyed all of them. But when Murphy decided in 2011 to break up the band, I can’t say I was overly sad. And when, last year, he decided to reunite the band, I wasn’t too surprised.

But lots of people were, and called Murphy a sellout and a traitor for reigniting his most successful project. I guess phony farewell tours and subsequent reunions are only for ‘70s bands with no integrity, not for paragons of indie earnestness like Murphy? I dunno. From the first news of the band’s massive goodbye concert in New York, I knew they’d probably be back. This is just how these things usually go.

The question is, does the reunion album justify its own existence? And the answer is, sure. It’s hard to say that LCD Soundsystem is a band in the traditional sense anyway – Murphy is its only constant member, and is clearly the mastermind. So if he has a new batch of songs, why not call them LCD Soundsystem songs? And why expect that these new ones would be somehow worse than the older ones?

The new album, American Dream, is a bit different, but not much. It’s still Murphy and all his neuroses, set to banging club drums and synth-driven dance-punk. This one feels a little more like a single thought, rather than a set of singles, and it’s darker and more desperate in places. But it still sounds like LCD Soundsystem, a mix of David Bowie and David Byrne with a little Prince thrown in. Murphy’s arrangements are as weird as always – “Other Voices” feels like it might fall apart as you’re listening to it, its insistent beat the only thing keeping it together, and the falling-off-a-cliff guitar of “Change Yr Mind” is delightfully off-kilter.

The first four songs of this album are pretty good, yet pretty standard. It’s the fifth, “How Do You Sleep,” that really takes flight, though. Over nine minutes, Murphy channels the Peter Gabriel of “The Rhythm of the Heat,” building a menacing drum pattern into a scathing powerhouse rant. There’s a hint of Echo and the Bunnymen to this one. It’s something special. The album’s second half builds on this energy, bursting out of the gate with the jittery, self-aware “Tonite” and the galloping “Call the Police.” It was here that I realized that LCD Soundsystem is everything Arcade Fire has been trying and failing to be for the past few years.

The album concludes with the 12-minute “Black Screen,” which is unlike anything Murphy has done – it’s quiet, and resists the urge to get louder, remaining funereal for its entire running time. (As this is Murphy’s tribute to David Bowie, that’s fitting.) The final minutes feature just piano over a synth pulse, a coda that sends the album out on a more meditative note.

So does American Dream justify the return of LCD Soundsystem? I’d say yes, even if I cared about Murphy’s bait-and-switch breakup and reunion. It fits nicely into the Soundsystem catalog, while adding a few new twists on it, and continues Murphy’s story nicely. It’s also a good record in its own right, driving forward confidently into the band’s second act. I wish all big-deal events in the wider music world were this good.

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We lost Walter Becker, one half of Steely Dan, this week. I won’t pretend to be a fan, but Becker’s mark on the world is significant. You can read his partner in crime Donald Fagen’s remembrance here. Becker was 67.

Next week, Tori Amos, Mutemath and a couple others. It’s a big release week, kicking off a big release month. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.