Today is Halloween, and the weather is appropriately cold and grey.

There are hints of rain, and enough of a chill in the air that stepping outside without a coat is a guaranteed one-way ticket to sniffleville. Two weeks ago the weather was scorching – between 90 and 100 degrees, sun beating down oppressively, making the case for climate change all by itself. But now it’s the dead of winter, weather that could justifiably be called miserable.

We didn’t get an autumn this year, is what I’m saying. We jumped straight from a summer that lasted through mid-October into a shivery winter, its icy tendrils already prophesying the coming snow. (In fact, some reports say we’re getting snow next week.) It’s been a shock to the system, and I know I’m not alone in feeling cheated. I grew up in New England, where fall lasts two months or so. Two months of lovely red and yellow and brown leaves decorating the trees, of pumpkin patches and apple cider. It may be my favorite season, and we’ve been robbed of it.

If we’d been granted an autumn, Weezer’s new album might not seem so strange. But it is into this frigid wasteland of an early winter that Rivers Cuomo has seen fit to release Pacific Daydream, the band’s twelfth album (if you count Death to False Metal, which I certainly do). As you can probably tell from the title, this record takes the summery vibe of last year’s White Album even further. This is 30 minutes of cruising-with-the-top-down pop, more appropriate for palm trees and beach parties than the scarf-and-mittens weather into which it’s been dropped.

Let’s be real, though: this doesn’t even crack the top ten weirdest choices Weezer has made. I love that we’re 23 years into their career and they remain not only prolific, but unpredictable. For Pacific Daydream the band worked with Butch Walker, who also produced their silly yet wonderful Raditude. The tone here is not dissimilar – if you’re one of those people who remains emotionally invested in Pinkerton and hates it when Cuomo lets his ridiculous pop instincts take center stage, well, sorry. You’re gonna hate this.

I love it. Weezer’s been on a hot streak for a while with me, and Pacific Daydream is their third album in a row that I would rank among my favorites. It’s glossier than the White Album, more intricately produced, more crafted for immediate pleasure. The lyrics are all effervescent and lighter than air. The first song, “Mexican Fender,” hangs on the line “my summer love, oo-ee-oo,” and the third song is called “Feels Like Summer.” It is exactly the kind of record you think it is. It goes down smooth and easy, and is only interested in making you feel good for half an hour.

Which sounds like something I’d hate, but for the fact that Cuomo is so very, very good at this kind of thing. These songs are so hummable, so delightful that I can’t help singing along, and even doing little dances. Cuomo’s ode to the “Beach Boys” is a lovely thing, incorporating some Wilson-esque harmonies. “Turn it up, it’s the Beach Boys, singing out in a sweet voice…” “Weekend Woman” is a sweet tale of love with “no time for poetry” but plenty of time for a wonderful bridge, and “Happy Hour” is encouraging and sweet: “I need happy hour on sad days.” The band is typically anonymous, disappearing behind these bite-sized morsels, playing exactly what Cuomo’s tunes need.

Sure, if you grew up with “The Sweater Song” and “Tired of Sex,” these tunes might seem lightweight. But they’re lightweight on purpose, and beautifully so. I would love it if Brian Wilson’s modern music sounded this much like Brian Wilson at his best – I can totally see his band killing “QB Blitz,” a harmony-drenched bit of sun-dappled yearning, and “Sweet Mary” takes on that Jeff Lynne quality. I just love these classic pop songs, and I love what Weezer and Walker have done with them. Pacific Daydream is another little winner, and a fun reminder of the summer we just bid farewell.

But there’s no denying that the blissful feel of Pacific Daydream doesn’t match the world outside our window. The sudden winter is a much more appropriate backdrop for Turn Out the Lights, the second album by songwriter Julien Baker. This 22-year-old is everywhere right now, playing her desperately sad songs on CBS Sunday Morning and A Prairie Home Companion. They fit the lonely chill of nights to come perfectly – in fact, they might be too sad to listen to alone.

Baker seemingly appeared out of nowhere two years ago, releasing one of the most critically acclaimed albums I can remember, Sprained Ankle. Containing literally nothing but Baker’s guitar and voice, the record ached like a living thing, laying bare its author’s pain and promise. Turn Out the Lights, blessedly, is almost the same – the jump to Matador Records has only resulted in a slightly wider palette, a slightly more ambitious scope. The new songs are just as devastating, and perhaps more, since they crescendo more effectively, ebb and flow more convincingly.

Baker is only 22, which seems impossible, given the depth of feeling in every minute of this album. Its opening piano and strings quickly give way to her signature electric guitar and her forlorn, aching voice on “Appointments,” and within moments, you’re wrapped up in Baker’s spell. It’s almost oppressive – for 40 minutes, no light gets in, no joy. “Maybe it’s all gonna turn out all right, and I know that it’s not, but I have to believe that it is,” she sings, a sentiment that sets the tone for the record.

But it’s amazing that someone so young can weave a spell this effective, and sustain it. Her lyrics will resonate with anyone battling loneliness and trying to quiet the voice that tells them they’re no good, not worth it. The title track brings that battle to the fore: “I’d never do it, but it’s not a joke, I can’t tell the difference when I’m all alone… when I turn out the lights, there’s no one left between myself and me.” Her passionate shouts come from the depths of her soul.

Baker has said that while some of Turn Out the Lights is autobiographical, some of it relates the stories of people she knows. “Sour Breath” takes on mental illness and how difficult it is to remain afloat: “The harder I swim the faster I sink,” she repeats. Several songs, like “Televangelist,” find her playing piano, but not sacrificing an ounce of emotion to do so. “Televangelist” is one of several songs to address Baker’s complex thoughts about religion and guilt: “Am I a masochist, screaming televangelist clutching my crucifix of white noise and static, all my prayers are apologies, hold out a flare until you come for me…”

The stunning “Everything to Help You Sleep” opens up that box even more, Baker singing about the Holy Ghost speaking in Morse code and blaming herself for God’s silence: “If I scream a little louder I know you would have heard.” The chorus is amazing: “Lord, Lord, Lord is there some way to make it stop, nothing that I do has ever helped to turn it off, and everything supposed to help me sleep at night doesn’t help me sleep at night anymore…” She dreams of rewiring her brain and wonders if God made a mistake on “Happy to Be Here,” and when she sings “I heard there’s a fix for everything, then why not me,” it breaks my heart.

But the album doesn’t kill me until “Hurt Less,” my vote for the best song Baker has yet written. It’s the one song on which she makes progress – she begins by singing about why she doesn’t wear seatbelts: she hopes to feel her body and soul float through the air after crashing through the windshield. And then she finds someone to talk to, someone to share with, and goddamn, I cry each time she gets to the concluding verse: “This year I started wearing safety belts when I’m driving, because when I’m with you I don’t have to think about myself, and it hurts less…” (And just when your heart can’t hold anymore, the strings. The strings!)

No other record so far this year hurts like this one hurts, and that emotional connection is Baker’s greatest strength. As I mentioned, she’s only 22, so she’ll only get better – her songs have a sameness to them that I hope she’ll outgrow. But when it comes to capturing true feeling, few do it as well as she does. As someone who has lived with depression for his entire life, a song like “Claws in Your Back” gets it down on tape with surprising accuracy, and heart-rending candor. Turn Out the Lights is a tough listen, and a powerful one, and a necessary one. In sharing her darkest hours, she helps us talk about ours, and that’s an incredible gift. I’m in awe of the way she uses it here, and how from the depths of winter she assures us that summer is possible.

That’s it for this week. Next week, who knows? Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

We lost Gord Downie this week.

I can’t pretend to be the greatest fan of the Tragically Hip. I first heard them in college, intrigued by a poster for their third album, Fully Completely. I bought Day for Night and Trouble at the Henhouse and Phantom Power and enjoyed them all, but didn’t carry them in my heart the way so many other people did. I found out only years later how legendary the band was in their native Canada, and how revered Downie was in his home country.

And to be fair, he’s revered here, by many, many people. When he announced in May of last year that he had been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, the outpouring of support and love was extraordinary. The band’s farewell tour and final show were events, even bringing out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, himself a devoted fan of the Hip. It was something to see.

Downie kept working straight to the end. His final album, a double-CD song cycle called Introduce Yerself, will be released this week. Sadly, Downie did not live to see it. He died last Tuesday at age 53. If you want some idea of how important his passing was to Canadians, consider this: Prime Minister Trudeau issued a statement eulogizing him. “When he spoke, he gave us goosebumps and made us proud to be Canadian,” it reads, in part. “Our identity and culture are richer because of his music, which was always raw and honest – like Gord himself.”

Rest in peace, Gord.

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Stranger Things is back this weekend, and I am absurdly excited.

If you somehow missed Netflix’s runaway hit last year, just know that it’s a perfect pastiche of Stephen King and ‘80s movies, like if The Goonies were about not only a plucky band of kids but also about a telekinetic teenager who could kill at a moment’s notice. It’s a perfect nostalgic cocktail – it isn’t particularly deep, but it is a lot of fun, and decidedly creepy in all the right places. I’m very much looking forward to the second season, which lands on Friday.

One element that sets Stranger Things apart is its music. In addition to a bevy of ‘80s hits, the score is crafted by members of the band S U R V I V E, who create synthwave instrumentals on vintage instruments. Their work is a little bit Vangelis, a little bit Wendy Carlos, and all neon-dappled dispatches from the Me Decade. It’s exactly right for a slice of Spielbergian cinema like Stranger Things.

Now, one might think it cynical to note that multi-talented musician Klayton scheduled his second album as Scandroid, his ‘80s-inspired synthwave project, to land one week before Stranger Things 2. But I don’t think it is. Klayton’s a shrewd marketer, and he knows people will be in the mood this weekend for what Scandroid has to offer. He couldn’t have timed it better, actually.

Who the hell is Klayton and what the hell is Scandroid, you ask? Klayton is the mastermind behind the electro-rock-metal-whatever project Celldweller, the industrial metal outfit Circle of Dust, the synth-driven soundscape machine FreqGen, and Scandroid, his love letter to the retro-futurism of the 1980s. Klayton has been producing his own work for his own label FiXT since 1999, and lately has been releasing two or three albums under various names each year.

You’d think, given the rate of his output, that he would start to suck, but he hasn’t yet. Monochrome, the new Scandroid album, is his third new thing of the year, including the Scandroid remix album and the surprisingly gentle new Celldweller, Offworld. It’s clear, though, that a lot of his work this year has gone into Monochrome. Like its predecessor, it’s a perfect recreation of that 1980s sound, from the drum fills to the blipping bass lines to the vocal effects. And like its predecessor, it’s more than a pastiche. It’s clearly a labor of love, a sincere valentine to a sound he grew up with and still cherishes.

There’s a lot to love about Monochrome, from the songs that were released early (the great “A Thousand Years,” “Afterglow,” “Rendezvous”) to the deep cuts (the title track, the epic “The Veil”). Throughout, Klayton keeps that vintage sound fresh, and if you enjoyed the first Scandroid album, there isn’t a lot that would keep you from loving this one.

But there are a few things, mainly the disjointed nature of the whole thing. Start with the fact that there are four instrumentals and a remix padding out the runtime. Then consider the two covers – one of the instrumentals is a re-working of John Williams’ “The Force Theme” from Star Wars, which really feels out of place here, and the other is a full-on dive into Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” that somehow manages to be audacious without quite going far enough. That leaves only six new Scandroid songs with vocals, not counting the intro “2518.”

The effect is a pretty bumpy ride, as an album. Where the first Scandroid album flowed beautifully, even incorporating a cover of Tears for Fears’ “Shout” into its mix, this one feels like Klayton had enough tracks on his hard drive to fill an album and just shoved them all onto the same CD. On a song-by-song basis, these are all pretty cool tracks – the instrumental “Oblivia” works in a very ‘80s sax sound and still manages to be expansive, “On the Face of the Deep” is similarly widescreen, and while I don’t think it belongs, I enjoy “The Force Theme” more than I expected to.

This is an album that raises the question of whether albums are meant to be complete journeys or a series of individual tracks on a disc. I’m always a fan of the former, but even with its cohesion problems, Monochrome is an enjoyable second effort from a project I remain excited about. I’m down for anything Klayton wants to do, and he hasn’t disappointed me yet. It might be time to slow down a little, though, and work on creating something that holds up as a complete journey next time out. I’m happy to hear as much music as Klayton wants to throw at me, but some more gestation time could have transformed Monochrome from an enjoyable hodgepodge to a fully formed statement.

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Gonna call it early this week. Next week, Weezer and Julien Baker, and maybe one or two others. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I confess that it took me a while to get Beck.

If you were alive in 1994, you could not possibly have escaped “Loser,” Beck’s signature hit. A bluesy acoustic shuffle over electronic boom-boom drums with lyrics in Spanish and a lackadaisical half-rap vocal style, “Loser” was like nothing else. It was like a weird novelty record from the future. It was also the only song like it on Mellow Gold, which remains one of the strangest major-label debuts in history.

I heard Mellow Gold a couple times, then filed it away, expecting it would be the last I would hear of Beck. Maybe, I thought, he’d eke out a couple more bizarre records, but no one would pay any attention to them. Happily, he’s gone on to surprise me (and everyone else) again and again. No one expected the sophisticated cut-and-paste pop chemistry of Odelay, nor the gentle Mutations, nor the Prince-tastic joke-a-thon Midnite Vultures, nor the beautiful and ethereal Sea Change. For the next 20-some years, Beck became one of our most nimble sonic chameleons, to the point where you never quite knew where he was going to land next.

Three years ago, Beck dropped Morning Phase, a spiritual sequel to Sea Change that found him treading old ground for the first time. That’s not to say that the album wasn’t wonderful, because it was. But where the erstwhile Mr. Hansen used to pull the rug out with each new record, now we find ourselves switching between two modes: Somber Beck and Party Beck. This isn’t necessarily a complaint, since both modes have produced great work. It’s just more predictable.

Colors, Beck’s newly released 13th album, is Party Beck, which isn’t a surprise. But if he were that boring, this would be the end of the review. The truth is, Colors is great, well worth the three-year wait. It’s the most low-key and mature record Party Beck has made – he’s 47 years old now, too much of a grown-up for the jump-cut hysteria of Odelay. With one glaring exception, Colors is straight-ahead melodic bliss, the work of a confident elder statesman who still likes to dance.

For this record, Beck worked mainly with Greg Kurstin, whose stock in trade is this flavor of pop – sweet and melody-driven, but far from the realm of your Taylor Swifts and Justin Biebers. These songs are classic pop, simple and driving and hummable, and all dressed up in their finest clothes. There’s a hint of Beck’s ‘90s roots on “I’m So Free,” and a nice nod to the happier end of Elliott Smith’s oeuvre on “Dear Life.” “No Distraction” sounds like a lost Police hit from 1983 with a dance-floor update.

There’s a danger that Beck’s electro-dance-pop will not age as well as he does, and Colors should put that to rest. It all feels graceful and agile, never dipping into embarrassment. Well, except once – the pre-release single, “Wow,” which doesn’t fit this album at all. Reportedly included on Colors because of label pressure, “Wow” is everything the rest of the album isn’t: a labored attempt to be modern that flails desperately and falls flat. Luckily, it’s followed by “Up All Night,” one of the most delightful slices of fun here, so it’s a memory soon forgotten. But it shouldn’t be here at all.

Nine out of ten is a pretty good average, though, and Colors is mostly dynamite. While it’s not as whiplash-inducing as some of his previous shifts, it does stake out its own territory in his catalog – he’s never quite brought his party mode and his melodic instincts together as well as this. And if you listen to this and, say, The Information back to back, you’ll be surprised at how far he’s come, and how different this is. I’m quite pleased with this record, and if Party Beck wants to continue in this vein, I’m all for it. But knowing him, I’m sure another tonal shift is around the corner.

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Speaking of shapeshifters, here’s Annie Clark, better known as St. Vincent. And it’s probably about time that I admit something pretty weird.

While I think Clark is terrifically talented, and I have enjoyed every St. Vincent album, I honestly can’t remember them. I’m looking now at the track listings for Marry Me and Actor and Strange Mercy, albums I swear I heard and enjoy, and I can’t recall a note from any of them. It’s hard for me to think of this as Clark’s fault – she’s a mix of Kate Bush and Prince, a multi-instrumentalist with a flair for the dramatic and a coy sensuality, all things I enjoy. But man, I can’t even remember how “Cheerleader” goes, and I know people who have covered it.

So it’s a good thing that I’m re-listening to her fifth album, Masseduction, as I write this. The album even looks like a departure – the cover is a view of Clark’s backside, lit in red, the most sexualized image she has used. The record is her most mainstream-sounding, full of electronic beats and synthesized noises, and I’m inclined to credit her collaboration with Jack Antonoff (one half of fun. and the sole member of Bleachers) with this shift, but mostly I think it’s just Clark trying on new tones like new outfits, as she always has.

It’s a lot to take initially, though. The title track finds her purring “I can’t turn off what turns me on,” in a tone both sexy and menacing. “Sugarboy” is a blippy synth nightmare on overdrive with freaky shouted gang vocals and an interlude that sounds like a video game. “Los Ageless” is a pretty simple pop song dressed up in a stomping beat and a squirrely electro bass sound that gets more abrasive as it goes, and it ends with a spoken word coda. “Savior” is a strange detour into fetish-land, and it leads into “New York,” a genuinely pretty tune with the hook line “you’re the only motherfucker in the city who can stand me.” “Fear the Future” is a jittery, skittering thing with a big Tori Amos-style chorus.

It’s a lot to process, and I’m normally excited by records that throw this much at me. Weirdly, though, Masseduction glides right by me, leaving no lasting mark. It’s good – in fact, the closer, “Smoking Section,” flirts with brilliance – and I admire Clark for being this individualistic, for creating albums that could come from no one else. I like it while it’s playing, much like I have enjoyed all of her work while I’m listening to it. But I can already tell it isn’t going to stick with me, no matter how many times I listen. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s probably not Masseduction’s fault. Take that as you will.

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Finally, we have the legendary Robert Plant, who definitely qualifies as a shape shifter, and whose current band is called the Sensational Space Shifters.

Plant is 69 years old now, and what a career he’s carved out for himself. His decade fronting Led Zeppelin guaranteed him the freedom to do whatever he wanted from then on, and he’s used that freedom to explore every kind of music he can grace with that velvet voice. From his brief stint with the Honeydrippers to his electro-metal Now and Zen period to his subtle and beautiful work with Strange Sensation to his career-highlight collaboration with Alison Krauss, Plant has done everything imaginable.

So what’s left? His 11th solo album, Carry Fire, is his second with the Space Shifters, and it finds him harnessing this spectacular band to create the most beautiful music he can. Over time Plant’s voice has weathered and aged into a creaky yet wizened thing – he’s still capable of hitting those higher notes and belting it out when he chooses to, but these days he’s more interested in whispering to us, in singing with restraint and reserve. He knows he has nothing more to prove.

To that end, quite a lot of Carry Fire stands with the prettiest work he’s done. “Season’s Song” is a gentle acoustic hymn that builds in intensity, sung with an airy grace. “Dance with You Tonight” takes its rolling rhythm and sculpts it into a gorgeous bit of sunlight. “A Way With Words” is almost too intimate, the microphone picking up every breathy sound from Plant’s mouth, but it works with the sparse, swaying music. Even an uptempo piece like opener “The May Queen” concentrates on being as beautiful as possible.

All of this is not to say that the Space Shifters don’t crank up the amps here and there. “New World” and “Bones of Saints” are stompers, while “Carving Up the World Again… A Wall and Not a Fence” is a bluesy state of the union address that kicks. And the title track is a stunning bit of Middle Eastern dance music. Plant has assembled one of his very best bands, and they knock it out of the park again and again here.

If there’s anyone who doesn’t need to keep creating new music, it’s Robert Plant. He doesn’t need the money, and he’s already immortal. But I’m beyond glad that he does. Each new album is an exploration of tone, mood and style unlike any Plant has made before. After nearly 50 years as a recording artist, Plant is still charting new territory, taking that voice new places. It’s more than we deserve.

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That’s it for this week. Next week, probably Scandroid. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’ve recently started going to church again, after a 25-year absence.

The reasons are many and varied, but they come down to the fact that I have finally found a church where I feel at home. Churches, in my experience, can be toxic places, full of judgment and exclusion and moral superiority. If I’m going to go to church, that church needs to be a place where I can have as many doubts and as much disbelief as I have, without feeling like that leaves me on the outside. Or even that there is an outside – church should be welcoming to everyone who wants to be there, I think, wherever they are on whatever journey they’re on.

I grew up in a church, but as I got older, I realized I had more questions than the church had answers for me, and I moved away from it. Faith has never come easy for me, and being around people who seem to breeze through it makes it even more difficult. I’ve never really left it alone during that time – or, as Steve Hindalong would say, somebody out there won’t leave me alone, which is more accurate. But for a quarter-century, really the only thing faith-related that I kept up with was the music.

If you’ve been reading this column for any length of time, you know I love a lot of music that falls under the Christian banner. The truth is, I have always been interested in any art that honestly responds to the infinite. Call it God, call it the Force, whatever. The art that moves me most is the art that discusses our relationship to whatever it is that is beyond us, and to my mind, all responses are valid. This includes anger and fear and bewilderment and rejection, as well as faith and love. It’s a messy, complicated thing, and I’m always on board for honest, emotional outpourings to the heavens.

So that’s how I know who Derek Webb is. He’s been on my radar for nearly two decades, first as one half of Caedmon’s Call and then as a solo artist. If Webb is known for anything, it’s for being a provocateur – his work points fingers in a lot of directions, including back at himself, and has been staunchly Christian in nature, yet still piercingly honest. The first Webb song I fell in love with was “Wedding Dress,” on his 2003 solo debut She Must and Shall Go Free. It’s a powerful examination of his tendency to parade his own righteousness around: “I am a whore, I do confess, put you on just like a wedding dress and I run down the aisle…”

Webb has never been your average songwriter. He’s wrestled with the implications of faith for his whole career, perhaps most pointedly on 2009’s Stockholm Syndrome, a difficult yet danceable deconstruction of both church and state. That one caused some controversy – Christian audiences don’t tend to like it when you take them uncomfortable places, and Stockholm Syndrome was partially about confronting the church’s homophobia and racism head-on. It’s a great little record, but a prickly one.

So the church was primed and ready to throw stones at Webb as soon as he stumbled, and he sure did. He was caught in an affair that led to the very public end of his marriage to fellow songwriter Sandra McCracken, and in the ensuing years, he’s lost that sure-fire faith he held on to throughout his career. Webb calls his new album, Fingers Crossed, a tale of two divorces – from his wife and from God and the church. It’s his first in four years, following the more traditionally church-y I Was Wrong, I’m Sorry and I Love You, and it’s clear that these four years have been the most painful of his life.

And because he is Derek Webb, he has examined these years with the same soul-baring honesty he has brought to everything he’s done. Even if I had not started orbiting the church world again, Fingers Crossed would be a difficult and powerful listen. Every time I spin it, it lays me low. It hurts. It’s meant to hurt. To be truthful, I’m not done processing this record, and I don’t know if I ever will be. This is a record about feeling abandoned by people, about making a terrible mistake and watching as the ones who said they would stand by you left you alone in it. Worse, this is a record about feeling abandoned by God, about the incredibly empty feeling of losing faith.

He addresses the people right up front, on the striking opener “Stop Listening.” Over what will become the framework for this album – gently picked acoustic guitars atop uncomfortable, off-kilter electronic percussion – Webb exhorts those who are grieving his separation from the faith to either come at this work with an open mind, or tune out: “If you stop listening now, we can still be friends, if your eyes can see what’s killing me, I’ll need you by the end, but I’ll understand if you stop listening…” He takes on the voices of the church in the second verse: “We’re with you all the way, no matter what the cost, I mean unless you climb down from the cross…”

For those who keep listening, Webb lays himself bare. The most gut-wrenching moments of the album paint him as a wretched, lonely soul, drinking alone and crying out in anguish, yearning for his lost love and his lost faith, hoping to repair his severed connections, but not sure how. “A Tempest in a Teacup” is a searing portrait of deconstruction, of a man with nothing left: “Something deep down in my heart, something that made me who I was, invisible, I guess it just didn’t pan out, I guess it’s just another heart I broke, another dream I woke up…”

I can barely listen to “Love is Not a Choice,” a song in which Webb admits that he sometimes wakes up and doesn’t remember where his wife and children have gone. “I’ve chosen not to love you anymore,” he sings, but he knows that he has no control over it. “And deep down the only one you want is the one who you betray, the one you can’t have, who’ll never take you back, who you think you never loved and who never loved you too, sometimes you need the lie to be the truth…” (This is absolutely a one-sided record, by the way, and I do wonder how McCracken feels hearing these songs.)

Similarly, “I Will” is devastating: “Oh God, take us back to the place where this all began, where I’m holding her hand with no shame and no damn regret…” Webb’s albums have been one-man shows for some time now, but he’s never sounded this alone before.

The heartbreak of divorce is one thing, but when he digs down into his feelings of abandonment about God, it’s quite another. He can point to his mistake in his marriage, but in song after song on Fingers Crossed, Webb doesn’t know what he’s done to make God fall silent. “Easter Eggs” is the most elegant metaphor for the unsolvable mystery of God I’ve heard in a long time, portraying God as the Easter Bunny: “When our backs are turned, he sneaks around, hides the sweetest things for us… but us kids have a thought that mom’s been making it up, so our hearts won’t break like Easter eggs…”

It’s the bridge of that song that really gets me, though: “Either this is what you wanted, or I’m not praying hard enough, in either case you can’t be trusted, so I think I’m giving up…” I would have to raise my hand and say that I’ve felt like this so many times. The mysteries remain mysteries, and I can’t possibly pray hard enough to untangle them. God stays hidden. The album’s title track finds Webb staring down infinity with the newfound thought that perhaps there is nothing to save him: “What if there’s no sin, there’s no cross, there’s no them, there is no us, there’s just you and what you do, and how you pay for what you choose…”

The song guaranteed to attract the most attention here is “The Spirit Bears the Curse,” which masquerades as an expert troll job but is actually a soul-crushing admission. It’s a worship song, with the exact cadence and language of modern church music, all early Coldplay and water metaphors: “We raise our voice, we raise an offering, would you come near and quench our thirst…” The twist, though, is that this song is about alcohol, and it plays like a joke: “I am calling out the only name that delivers me from my guilt and shame, oh alcohol…” But on repeated listens, it’s obviously heartfelt, the work of a man who used to find fulfillment in one place, and is now finding it in another. Alcohol does for him now what God used to.

For a certain segment of Webb’s audience, that’s going to be a very hard admission to deal with. I said this when I reviewed Webb’s set at AudioFeed this year: those are the people who most need to listen, particularly to those who leave the faith, about why they leave. These stories don’t end, and people are not relegated to “good” and “bad” boxes. They’re people, with stories, and if I know anything about the faith Webb used to proclaim, it’s about loving people, listening to their stories and being part of them.

Webb himself leaves some hope, however subtle, in the final song, “Goodbye, For Now.” The last two words are pointed – the song is the saddest thing here, bringing his marriage and his faith together in a forlorn farewell to both. “So either you aren’t real,” he sings to God, “or I am just not chosen, maybe I’ll never know, either way my heart is broken…” But that “for now,” repeated in each chorus, is like a faint promise, echoed in the climax of the first song: “If we can get through this we may have a shot at something even we can’t tear apart.” The album ends on an unresolved chord, the musical equivalent of “to be continued.”

I hope so. As someone who has loved Derek Webb’s work for a long, long time, Fingers Crossed is a difficult and painful listen. It’s also a brilliant one, honest and true to where he is. I expected nothing less. I don’t know how often I am going to revisit it – how often I physically can revisit it, given what it does to me – but I hope that the people who most need to hear an album like this don’t stop listening. Webb’s voice remains important, crying out in a different kind of wilderness, but speaking truth just the same.

Buy Fingers Crossed here.

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

See you in line Tuesday morning.

What an emotionally exhausting week.

The entire country is reeling from the news out of Las Vegas: more than 50 people killed in the worst mass shooting in modern American history. I’ve seen footage and photographs, and it’s devastating. I admire those who are standing up in the face of tragedy to try to enact real change. I’m just not sure what that looks like anymore. I’d love it if we could agree to make preventing this kind of horror a priority, but it just doesn’t look like we’re going to. So I’m already mentally preparing for the next one. Which is unfathomably sad.

And then we lost Tom Petty. Which, I know, is not on the same scale, but for fans like myself, it added to the emotional distress of the week.

The first Tom Petty song I can remember hearing was “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” I was ten years old when it was released on Petty’s Southern Accents album, and I remember the song largely because of the creepy video. It was Alice in Wonderland meets surreal horror, with Petty as the Mad Hatter, and it ended with Alice’s body being cut into slices and served as cake to the denizens of Wonderland. I don’t remember a lot of things about being ten, but I remember the unsettled feeling that video left me with.

I know I heard “Refugee” and “The Waiting” and “Jammin’ Me” on the radio after that, but the first Petty I bought was Full Moon Fever, his first foray away from his lifelong backing band, the Heartbreakers. I never loved “Free Fallin’” like most people did – even at 14 I was gravitating away from simplicity – but I loved “I Won’t Back Down” and “Yer So Bad” and “Alright for Now.” My favorite was “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” which would go on to be an undisputed Petty classic. My friend Mike and I used that song in an animated short film about the Erie Canal we created for history class. (Yes, we were pretty nerdy.)

From then on, Petty would stay sort of peripheral to my life, but always a part of it. Into the Great Wide Open, particularly the great “Learning to Fly,” soundtracked my last year of high school. Petty was my way into the Traveling Wilburys, and I grew to love (or at least admire) each of those songwriters. I remember exactly where I was – in the kitchen of a house I shared with three guys during my junior year of college – the first time I heard Wildflowers, Petty’s best solo album. We’d watch the video for “You Don’t Know How It Feels” and lament the censorship – “let’s roll another joint” became “let’s roll another jnuuuuh,” or some other indecipherable mess. For us, this was a high crime, no pun intended.

I bought She’s the One at my favorite record store in downtown Portland, Maine, where I ended up working a few years later. I gave Echo a lukewarm review in the music magazine I worked for out of college, still in Portland. I bought The Live Anthology with money I made working as a journalist outside of Chicago, and it finally convinced me that the Heartbreakers are one of the best bands in America. I adored every second of Unchained, the Heartbreakers’ album with Johnny Cash, recorded near the end of the Man in Black’s life.

I think this is how Petty was for a lot of people. He had sort of a stealth effect on my life – I have never considered him a favorite, but when I look back, his music has made a deep impression on me for more than three decades. Of the “pure rock” songwriters I enjoy, he was quite possibly the best. He certainly knew how to make three chords and some keen observations into a smash hit that resonated with millions. They resonated with me, too, and it’s hard to believe that such a constant presence in my life is gone.

Petty died on Monday night after a heart attack earlier in the day. The conflicting news reports didn’t help, with many outlets pronouncing him dead hours before he actually passed on, causing many of us to go through the process of emotionally saying goodbye twice. Petty was only 66 years old, which I used to think was ancient. Now I can see it around the corner from me, and Petty’s death is a reminder that each day is precious. Hold on to the ones you love.

Rest in peace, Tom, and thank you for all the tunes.

* * * * *

That’s going to do it for me this week. If you’d like to read a more eloquent remembrance of Tom Petty, you can’t do better than this one from my friend John J. Thompson.

Next week, Derek Webb, speaking of emotionally devastating. I’m still not ready to write about it. I’m not sure I will be in a week, either. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.