There are few things I love more than connecting with people over music.

You know that high five you do with your eyes when you see someone wearing the t-shirt of a band you thought only you knew? That feeling of turning someone on to something magical that means the world to you? That indescribable elation that comes from being in a room with hundreds of other people who also like the obscure, otherwise ignored thing you like? I love all of that. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of knowing that other people have your back, that you’re not crazy to invest so much in something.

I get a variation of that same feeling from tribute albums. If an artist I respect and admire hears what I hear in a song or an album, that’s an incredible validation for me. Here’s a case in point: Sixteen years ago, New York trio Nada Surf released their third record, Let Go. It was their first on Barsuk Records, a label they still call home, and the first real indication that they were in it for the long haul. Back in 1996, Nada Surf were just getting started, and they were crushed under the weight of “Popular,” their novelty ditty of a first single. It was inescapable, and it forever tarred the band, so much so that their far superior second album, The Proximity Effect, got them dropped from Elektra Records. (“We just don’t hear a funny single, guys.”)

So Let Go was a statement, a flag planted in the rocky ground. It was also awesome, the first Nada Surf album I loved, and the start of a still-unbroken run of swell guitar-pop records from this still-underrated band. I adore that album, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that there would one day be a full tribute to Let Go, one that would draw in the likes of Manchester Orchestra, Aimee Mann, the Long Winters and Rogue Wave. And yet here it is. It’s called Standing at the Gates: The Songs of Nada Surf’s Let Go, and it’s wonderful.

Every song is represented, and treated with reverence and care. Manchester Orchestra starts things off with an impassioned, subtle read of “Blizzard of ’77,” and they nail it. Some of these versions, like Ed Harcourt’s piano take on “Fruit Fly,” are reinventions, but all of them maintain the essence, the core of melody and heart that defines the original record. The Long Winters, led by Jonathan Coulton’s buddy John Roderick, go all dance music on “Hi-Speed Soul,” in its original form a guitar rave-up. But it’s still decidedly, delightfully “Hi-Speed Soul.”

The dark and propulsive “Killian’s Red” is one of my favorites from Let Go, a little nightmare in 6/8, and Holly Miranda makes it her own with a sparse keyboard arrangement. There’s nothing I don’t love about what Eyelids (featuring members of the Decemberists) have done with “Treading Water,” and Victoria Bergsman of Taken By Trees brings us home with “No Quick Fix,” a song only available on the European version of Let Go.

But if you guessed that I love the Aimee Mann song best, you win. On the original record, “Paper Boats” is the final track, a pretty acoustic elegy, and when I first heard the bongos-in-a-box Mann decided to use on her version, my heart sank. I should have had faith. Mann worked wonders with this song, playing a delicate piano figure in place of the acoustics and incorporating some subtle strings. It’s somehow more haunting and affecting than Nada Surf’s version, which is amazing. When Aimee Mann wants to sing your song, and throws herself into a beautiful rendition crafted with obvious love, that has to feel good. Hell, I feel good about it and it isn’t even my song.

I’ve followed Nada Surf faithfully since my post-college years, and I kind of feel like a sports fan cheering on a favorite underdog team. Standing at the Gates is a delightful collection on its own, but it’s even more gratifying as a statement about how respected Nada Surf is and has become. Let Go is a terrific little record, and it’s such a joy to hear so many splendid songwriters and bands agree.

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I’m a pretty big fan of Meshell Ndegeocello too, and on her new album Ventriloquism, the venerable bassist and singer has done the opposite, recording her own versions of 11 songs by other artists. Covers records are always interesting to me as a way of teasing out influences, of learning which songs contributed to the development of an artist’s singular sound. Ndegeocello certainly has one of those – her poetic, funky, low-key soul-pop has no direct peers, so I was fascinated to hear what she’d choose to make her own on this record.

And I was pleasantly surprised by her selections. Ventriloquism, her 12th album, includes straight, serious, well-considered takes on songs by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, TLC, Ralph Tresvant, Janet Jackson and others of that ilk. It’s a treasure trove of “hey, I remember that” songs from the ‘80s and early ‘90s, and Ndegeocello takes each one apart, finds the wonder inside, and brings that to the fore.

If you want an idea of what this is like, look no further than her slow, sinuous guitar-and-bass ballet through “Nite and Day,” a ubiquitous hit for Al B. Sure in 1988. Gone are the pop beats, and in their place is a dreamy atmosphere – this is so thick you could breast stroke through it. Here is a folksy acoustic rendering of “Waterfalls,” by TLC. Here is a shuffling guitar-led take on “Sensitivity,” the 1990 hit from New Edition main man Tresvant. Here is an amazing, pleading reading of “Tender Love,” originally released in 1986 by Force MDs. It’s one of three songs here written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the production team behind so many of those ‘80s hits.

This is all so good, so unexpected, that after a while it gets harder to shock. But she does it with a somewhat creepy run through “Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun),” Janet Jackson’s 1987 smash. There’s nothing funny about the grey, oppressive tone Ndegeocello takes with this one, and it’s kind of awesome that she heard this noise in this song. The record ends with perhaps its most out-there rendition, a nimble jazz swing through Sade’s “Smooth Operator,” fully deconstructing the tune beyond recognition. This new version is airborne almost from the start, and it keeps climbing.

Ventriloquism is such a strange delight that it couldn’t have been made for anything but artistic reasons. In the liner notes she refers to it as a refuge from the storms of the current world situation, and I hope it worked for her in that way. It certainly has provided several hours of diversion for me, taking in more with each listen, hearing these songs the way Ndegeocello hears them. Being allowed this view inside her brain is a joy. If you remember any of the songs I just mentioned, you’ll want to hear this.

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And here is where I get to complain that Ventriloquism, being a covers record, is not eligible for my top 10 list. Neither is Standing at the Gates, since it’s a various-artists tribute album. These unfortunate whines can only mean one thing: it’s time for the First Quarter Report.

If you’re new around these parts, here’s what this is: every three months, I reveal how my top 10 list in progress looks. I do this with the understanding that there is no way that these records in this order will make up my final top 10 list of the year. (At least, I hope not.) It’s just a fun way of explaining my process, and tracking the progress of the final list, which I will post in December.

And man, it’s been a lousy year so far. I’m glad we have so many things headed our way over the next few months, including Eels, Sloan, Laura Veirs, Janelle Monae, Frank Turner, Beach House, Ray Lamontagne and Neko Case, not to mention a new Choir album and a solo record from the voice of the Choir, Derri Daugherty. That eases the pain somewhat, because, not to disparage these records, but this is not a stellar top 10 list, and if it stays this way through December, it’ll be a disappointing 2018.

Anyway, here’s the list right now:

10. GoGo Penguin, A Humdrum Star.
9. Field Music, Open Here.
8. First Aid Kit, Ruins.
7. Listener, Being Empty, Being Filled.
6. Audrey Assad, Evergreen.
5. The Bad Plus, Never Stop II.
4. They Might Be Giants, I Like Fun.
3. Belle and Sebastian, How to Solve Our Human Problems.
2. Tune-Yards, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life.
1. I’m With Her, See You Around.

I can make a case for all of those records, but only a few of them blew me away, so I’m hoping for a more substantially awesome list in a few months.

Next week, Jukebox the Ghost. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m a keyboard player.

Sometimes I say piano player, but keyboard player is really what I mean. I grew up learning from Yanni and the dude from Journey. Keith Emerson was a hero of mine, from the time I heard “Touch and Go.” Van Halen never did it for me until “Jump.” I thought keytars were awesome, and wanted one desperately from age 10 to probably age 16. In high school I made several (terrible) albums of solo keyboard music. During the years after college, I made several more.

I say all that to point out that when bands get all keyboard-y – even bands that, from the outside, really shouldn’t – I don’t mind it. It’s a bit of a cliché at this point, so I’m likely to let out a sigh or two for that reason, but for the most part, I’m on board with the synth sounds. If an artist wants to explore new territory, and this is the territory they choose, I’m willing to find out why. Sometimes the reasons are compelling – see the aforementioned Van Halen as a prime example. Sometimes they’re not so much.

I’m afraid I’m still not sure which way I’m leaning with the Decemberists. If you’d asked me two years ago to write out a list of bands most likely to turn to the keyboards, I would never have included them. Somehow not even the prog-rock Jethro Tull-isms of The Hazards of Love seem as full-on a left turn as I’ll Be Your Girl, the venerable Portland band’s eighth album. There’s nary a trace of the serious folksy band they’ve been, even on 2015’s underrated What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World.

Instead, the band approaches new wave on single “Severed,” and while the rest of the record doesn’t go quite as Flock of Seagulls as that one, there are synthesizers everywhere. Opener “Once in My Life” is a simple folk tune – almost too simple – except for the thick John Hughes-style keys that envelop the strumming acoustic guitars and Colin Meloy’s pleading voice. A seemingly sparse ditty like “Tripping Along” brings in an army of watery synth sounds on sustained chords. None of this is bad, it’s just very different.

I like the fact that very little of I’ll Be Your Girl sounds like the Decemberists. I’m not sure I like what it does sound like very much, but I applaud Meloy and his merry band for stretching out. “Your Ghost” is perhaps the most successful thing here, a galloping fantasia of surf guitar sounds, harpsichords and eerie la-la-la vocals. It brings the first half to a lively end, and sets you up for the sillier, looser second half.

“Everything is Awful” is something you come up with when you’re drunk and maybe demo it, but here it is in its full glory. “Sucker’s Prayer” and “We All Die Young” remind me of the filler tracks on the White Album, especially “We All Die Young,” with its “Revolution #1” guitar sounds and thudding beat. Meloy has called Girl a reaction to the 2016 election, and aside from a general sense of foreboding on tracks like “Starwatcher,” it’s hard to hear that, except in these sillier tunes. “Everything is Awful” is exactly what it sounds like, a declaration of terribleness set to giddy music: “What’s that crashing sound that follows us around? That’s the sound of all things good breaking…” The protagonist of “Sucker’s Prayer” tries to pray away his troubles, and then tries suicide, unsuccessfully. “We All Die Young” is, of course, about how we’re all going to die.

Still, I found little to love on this album until the final two tracks. “Rusalka, Rusalka/The Wild Rushes” is the eight-minute epic, a mash-up of two John Lennon-ish tunes with simple backdrops and orchestration, and this is the one that sounds the most like the Decemberists of old. After nine tracks of experimentation, this is a confident piece of old-school drama, and the keys are largely unobtrusive until the proggy ending. And the title track, all two and a half minutes of it, is surprisingly tender and sweet, its lyric a lovely spin on Prince’s “If I Was Your Girlfriend.” “And when the tempests rage and all the oceans roar at your door, I could be your man but I’ll be that much more…” Like a lot of this record, there isn’t much to this song, but it’s got a good heart, and that counts for a lot.

I’m still not sure what to make of I’ll Be Your Girl. In some ways, it’s a bold reinvention of the Decemberists sound, shaking up their formula once again, and I’m always here for that. But in many ways it’s their worst record, especially when those experiments fall flat and you’re left with some of the band’s least inspired writing. I’ve come around on Decemberists records before, and I hope I come around on this one. For right now, it’s not doing it for me as much as I would like.

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Of course, as much as I like big ‘80s synthesizer sounds, I’ve grown into a much deeper fan of the piano as I’ve aged. Don’t get me wrong, I have always loved the instrument, and I’m always learning how to play it better. Bruce Hornsby was among my first piano idols, and I still love the way he voices chords and works his hands independently of one another. That list of piano idols has grown immensely since then, and now includes Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Ben Folds, the still-brilliant-when-she-wants-to-be Tori Amos and countless others.

Recently I wrote a glowing review of the new Bad Plus album, their first with new pianist Orrin Evans, and I’ve been delighted to check out his back catalog. He’s awesome. And now I have a new record from another piano-bass-drums trio that I adore, Manchester’s GoGo Penguin. They’re quite different from the Bad Plus, in that they steer clear of traditional jazz forms as much as possible, but they’re just as exciting.

GoGo Penguin is pianist Chris Illingworth, bassist Nick Blacka and drummer Rob Turner. The music they create together is atmospheric and purposeful, setting a mood with a few well-placed notes and riding that mood as long as they can. There’s an electronic edge to much of their work, but it’s mostly backdrop – Turner plays electronic drums here and there, and keys are used to fill out the sound, but the focus is truly on the three players.

And they’re great players. Their fourth album, A Humdrum Star, is a bit more reserved and score-like than their third, Man-Made Object, but as before, they find grooves and explore them, with an eye toward beauty and space. Illingworth never solos, and keeps himself to captivating arpeggios, playing to the song. Blacka takes the most improvised bits – he owns “Strid,” an eight-minute prog-jazz monolith, smacking his strings while the rest of the band lays back. But the best moments of this album come when all three are playing in delightful tandem.

I will admit that sometimes, not enough is happening in GoGo Penguin songs to keep my melody-focused brain on task. But then they’ll hit upon something like “Transient State,” which explodes with sheer musicality. The slower, more ambient pieces I can get lost in, and the more intense ones I study. It’s a win-win. A Humdrum Star is another strong release from a band increasingly unlike any other.

But if we’re gonna talk about piano, I’m going to have to mention one of the most prominent names on my list: Brad Mehldau. I first gravitated to Mehldau for his jazz piano takes on Radiohead songs, mainly because I’m always gratified when musicians of Mehldau’s caliber notice the compositional skill needed to write something like “Paranoid Android.” Like the Bad Plus, Mehldau has made a side career out of digging deep into pop songs and finding the hidden complexity and melodicism. Two years ago, he put out a four-CD box set of solo piano performances, and it includes epic takes on Stone Temple Pilots, Pink Floyd, the Kinks, the Beatles and Sufjan Stevens.

That box set has been a touchstone for me since it landed on my desk. It’s utterly astonishing, from first note to last, and I feel like I could spend years studying it, unfolding it, peeling back its layers. I love Mehldau with a band – his trio recordings are magnificent, and his more layered solo work is great. But my favorites of his works are the ones he performs alone, just the man and 88 keys. His new one, After Bach, is another solo work, and it’s typically excellent stuff.

This one has a fascinating concept. It contains Mehldau’s dexterous readings of six Bach pieces (four preludes and two fugues), each one followed by an original that was inspired by the Bach before it. In some cases you can hear the moments he’s riffing off of, the Bach lines he’s following down the rabbit hole. In all cases you’ll be blown away anew at Mehldau’s ability. He’s not only an extraordinary player, he’s a stunningly emotive one, listening closely to what he has just played and responding to it intuitively. He takes Bach’s cleaner, brighter lines into darker places, muddying them up with colors and shades, tracing their arcs as they descend, then allowing them to burst upward as something else entirely. The five “After Bach” pieces here are all wonderful.

I’m not absolutely sure what the final song, “Prayer for Healing,” is doing on this record, but oddly, it’s my favorite thing here. Over eleven gorgeous minutes, Mehldau restrains himself, playing the sparsest, most delicate chords and lines, and you can hear him feeling every one of them. I hear more of a reaction to the world since November 2016 in this piece than I do in the most politically charged songs of the past year. It imagines the world the way it should be, and Mehldau plays it like he’s spinning that vision into reality. It’s so, so beautiful.

And I will likely spend a lot of this year just studying Mehldau’s work on this record, as if I could figure it out just by listening more closely. I’m happy to stay lost in it, mystified by what I’m hearing. Mehldau is an absolute master, and the more I hear from him, the more I want to hear.

That’s it for this week. Next week, some brave souls volunteer as tribute. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m occasionally asked how heavy I get, musically speaking.

And the answer is pretty damn heavy. Usually when people ask me this, they’re wondering what I think about bands like Metallica or Mastodon, concerned that I seem to devote an enormous amount of time, energy and love to quieter, more meditative artists. I do rock sometimes, yes. But when I hear “how heavy do you get,” my mind moves in a more extreme direction, to bands like Meshuggah, well beyond the tolerance level of a lot of people I know.

So it was a great experience to be in a room last week with thousands of people who were similarly excited to see one of the heaviest bands I love: Between the Buried and Me. They played the House of Blues, and packed the place – I spent most of the show pressed up against the sound booth, trying not to get beer spilled on me as person after person nudged and shoved their way past me. That I enjoyed the whole show anyway is a testament to the bands.

And yeah, at least 50% of my excitement was about the opening act, The Dear Hunter. I will never again pass up a chance to see them. They’re one of the best bands in the world right now, and their catalog of amazing songs keeps growing. Casey Crescenzo was in fine voice, in contrast to the last time I saw them, and the band slammed through several selections from the latter three Acts, plus a couple tracks from their great new EP All Is as All Should Be. I believe we got the first ever live outing of “Witness Me,” which was pretty cool. Anyway, The Dear Hunter. I continue to evangelize for them, because they’re incredible.

But I was also excited to see how Between the Buried and Me would pull off their devilishly complicated progressive metal live. I’ve described them as Frank Zappa’s death metal band. They started off their career playing raw metal, but quickly grew more cerebral, and have for some time now only been crafting conceptual pieces that play like single 70-minute songs. Their albums are so wildly complex that I don’t know how they keep track of them while playing – I half expected them to use sheet music. The most labyrinthine of their records is the one that got the most play: The Parallax II: Future Sequence, an astonishing science fiction narrative set to jaw-droppingly heavy music that is insanely difficult to play.

And they were awesome, of course. Playing this music for any length of time must be simply exhausting, and they gave us nearly 90 minutes of blistering, yet painstakingly accurate performance. Tommy Rogers was the revelation for me – I knew the band would be tight behind him, but Rogers played all the keyboard parts while slipping effortlessly from his death growl to his strong melodic voice. The set closed with perhaps its most challenging piece, the 15-minute “Silent Flight Parliament,” and it was amazing to see them navigate its twisting passages.

I mention all of this because Between the Buried also played three songs off of their new album, Automata. They opened with one, in fact, throwing the crowd off guard right at the start. And while these songs didn’t inspire any particular reaction live, I’m happy to report that the first half of Automata in its recorded form is excellent. In fact, if the second half continues in this vein, I’ll happily put this record among my favorites from this band.

Wait, wait. First half, I hear you asking? Yes, for reasons that thoroughly escape me, BTBAM has decided to split Automata over two releases. The first is out now, the second will follow this summer. When I first heard this news, I thought they’d delivered a lengthy double album. But no, Automata will reportedly run 67 or so minutes when it’s complete, and this first half contains only 35 of those minutes. It’s only half a story I could easily read in one sitting.

And it is a story. Automata is a spiritual sequel to Coma Ecliptic, their previous album, in that it tells another futuristic sci-fi story about people and technology. The new record is about a man whose dreams are broadcast to the entire world as a form of entertainment, and presumably will tell the story of how he breaks out of this enslavement. But we have to wait until summer for that.

Which will actually be difficult, because Automata I is so good. Musically it feels like an arrival point. Coma Ecliptic sometimes felt confused to me, like the band wasn’t sure whether their excursions away from their metal roots would work. In some cases, they were right to be worried, but I applauded their willingness to take so many risks. Automata finds a way to incorporate everything Coma struggled to include, and sounds a lot more natural doing it. There’s just as much David Bowie and Pink Floyd here, but it sits nicely next to the other styles they’re going for, including a healthy dose of head-spinningly fast death metal.

The record opens the same way the concert did, with “Condemned to the Gallows.” It begins slowly, but soon erupts into a maelstrom of shouts and growls, guitarists Paul Waggoner and Dustie Waring parrying and thrusting around one another, like a violent dance. “House Organ” brings the keyboards in for long stretches, while the nearly nine-minute “Yellow Eyes” is a true epic, erupting with volcanic power but always returning to the clean melody. The EP (for that’s what it is) ends with “Blot,” which we also heard live. It’s a ten-minute excursion that slows down to a crawl in places, and ends abruptly.

That ending is the only problem I have with this record, in fact. The space between “Blot” and the next song should have been only a couple seconds, but now it will be months before we hear where it should have picked up. I hope there’s some reason not yet apparent to me why the band would cut their album in half, beyond (of course) the monetary one. Automata I is the first Between the Buried and Me album to leave me wanting more, and not in the good way.

I only complain because what we have is so awesome, though. I don’t know any other band quite like this one, where all five musicians have mastered their craft to such a level that they can create albums like Colors and The Great Misdirect and then leave them in the dust, as if they’re bored with them and looking for new challenges. I’m still catching up with those older records, still reveling in their pleasures, and BTBAM has moved well beyond them. They’re one of the best heavy bands in the world, and they somehow keep getting better. Bring on Automata II, because part one is fantastic.

* * * * *

I’m glad we’re talking about heavy music this week, because it gives me a chance to review the new Deliverance.

I’ve been a Deliverance fan since I understood what metal was. My teenage metalhead phase coincided somewhat with my teenage Jesus phase, and Deliverance was the perfect band for 15-year-old me to discover. Their first two records, Deliverance and Weapons of Our Warfare, were absolute classics of the Christian thrash genre, which was just feeling its way into existence in 1989. “Weapons of Our Warfare,” the song, got some MTV airplay, which was exciting to teenage me, because I thought it meant something.

As I grew up, so did Deliverance, leaving behind their strident Jesus-ness for a more mature and progressive approach. Leader Jimmy P. Brown became like a heavy metal Bowie, shifting styles album to album and working with Terry Taylor of Daniel Amos to create more layered, nuanced music. I’d stack albums like Learn and River Disturbance up against a lot of progressive metal, and I still admire their shift into industrial dance music with Assimilation, an album none of their fans were asking for.

Along the way, Brown launched a few other projects, most notable among them Jupiter VI, which has become his full-on prog band. Five years ago, Brown announced Hear What I Say, the final Deliverance album, and it was… OK. It was a summary of sorts, including some heavier material and some slower, keyboard-driven stuff, but it all seemed kind of half-hearted. Not the way I would have wanted a band with such a long and interesting history to go out.

Which is why I’m so glad The Subversive Kind exists. The new Deliverance album, their eleventh, is a gift to longtime fans like me. It’s a return to the full-on heavy thrash that I first loved, burning through eight tracks in a compact 31 minutes. It’s basically their Reign in Blood – fast, angry, with screaming solos and pounding drums. It’s classic metal, and Brown has convened some old-school players to pull it off, from bands I love but most of you have never heard of, like Tourniquet and Vengeance Rising. I know, I know, but if you’re into this corner of the music world, those names mean something. And I’ve been into it since I was in high school.

The Subversive Kind is pretty vague in its spirituality, which is fine with me. It’s mostly about living in a dark world and looking for the light, which is pretty relatable stuff. “Concept of the Other” takes aim at the idea that any of us should be shunned or mistreated because of who we are: “We’ve clearly drawn the line of who to justify to hate, reasoning by law and love, the blindfolded one has sealed their fate…” Otherwise it’s mostly your standard metal songs about overcoming pain and continuing the good fight.

Musically, though, it’s an eruption. I’m super happy with how heavy and intense it all is, and how focused its attack remains. There are no ballads, no quiet parts, no acoustic guitars anywhere. It’s just one loud, fast bit of molten awesome after another. These guys all have to be in their 50s now, and they still jam like teenagers. I never thought I’d get another Deliverance album at all, but to get one this committed, this energized, this electric, well, it’s a treat. Long live Deliverance.

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Next week, I have no idea. Pop by in seven days to find out. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Thursday is International Women’s Day. So what better time to talk about the welcome return of Kim Deal?

If you wanted the absolute definition of cool in the ‘80s, it was Kim Deal. As the bassist and sometimes songwriter for the Pixies, she joined Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth in obliterating the sexist idea of what a female musician could be. But it wasn’t until she emerged as the voice and vision behind The Breeders that Deal truly shone.

She formed the band with her identical twin sister Kelley, and the two of them were a force to be reckoned with. Their debut album, Pod, was written and recorded during a Pixies hiatus (with Tanya Donnelly of Throwing Muses as a member), but it was their second, Last Splash, that truly made them. Deal’s first album after the Pixies disbanded, Last Splash is a classic, and its single “Cannonball” belongs on any short list of great songs of the ‘90s.

Since then, Kim Deal has remained the only consistent member of the band. We haven’t heard the Last Splash lineup since 1993, and we haven’t heard from the Breeders since 2008. All of which makes the release of All Nerve, the fifth Breeders record, something of an event. It features that classic lineup: Kim and Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim MacPherson. For those of you holding your breath for a return to ‘90s glory, this would seem to be it.

And in classic Kim Deal fashion, the album itself does everything it can do to work against the idea that it’s any kind of (forgive me) big deal. The cover is nondescript. The album is a scant 33 minutes long. One of its songs is a cover. There’s almost no sense of urgency to it – it’s a slow burner of a record that takes multiple listens to appreciate and love. But given those multiple listens, it emerges as a worthy next step in Deal’s evolution.

If you spend All Nerve looking for the killer riff, you’ll probably be disappointed. These songs are subtler than that, surging forward on a couple chords and a simple melody, but hiding some interesting arrangements and treatments. Deal’s sarcastic “Good morning!” at the top of “Wait in the Car” sets the tone for that song’s two minutes of jackhammer two-note riffing. “Taking a nap ‘cause strategy’s for punks,” she shouts in that instantly recognizable voice, still strong at 56.

I’m a fan of the songs that aim for moments of beauty. The title track is one, the Deals’ clean guitar parts chiming out around the din. “Spacewoman” is an atmospheric mini-epic, vast for the Breeders at 4:22, with some buzzing synths and subtle electric piano. Wiggs takes the lead on “MetaGoth,” an ominous piece of work with slashing guitars and eerie harmonies. “Dawn: Making an Effort” is the prettiest thing here, Deal’s voice grounding what is a nearly ambient piece of lovely noise.

There’s a lot to appreciate in these 33 minutes, even if I sometimes wish the songs were more complete and immediate. It’s just so good to have Deal back. I hope All Nerve signals her desire to stick around. We need her and more like her.

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Speaking of amazing women, there are three of them in the newly minted folk supergroup I’m With Her. And while their name is always going to remind people of a certain time (and a certain election), the music these three make together is as timeless and beautiful as the music they make separately.

I’m With Her brings together Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan, and if you know your folksy singer-songwriters, you either already own their debut album, See You Around, or you’re racing out right now to buy it. So I guess the following words are for everyone else who has somehow avoided all three of these tremendous performers.

So here we go. Watkins is best known as one-third of Nickel Creek, but has made some fantastic solo records, including 2016’s Young in All the Wrong Ways. Jarosz is a stunning songwriter from Texas who, over four superb records, has established herself as one of the most promising voices around. Her fourth, Undercurrent, was particularly excellent. And O’Donovan is a great singer and player from the bands Crooked Still and Sometymes Why with a couple swell solo records under her belt, and a frequent collaborator with some of the finest musicians in the world.

You’d expect these three to make magic together, and they do. Best of all, there appears to be no ego involved here – the trio wrote all the original songs together, they take turns on lead vocals, they harmonize like angels, and they give each other plenty of space to shine instrumentally. If you could imagine the perfect combination of Watkins, Jarosz and O’Donovan, that’s what you’ll hear on this record. It’s another short one – a mere 40 minutes – but there isn’t a second of it I don’t love.

Yes, you can tell that some songs are more in line with one of the songwriters here. Opener “See You Around” is Jarosz without a doubt (and how gorgeous are those harmonies), while “Game to Lose” certainly sounds like Watkins to me, its mandolin and fiddle foundation straight out of her work. But really the best thing about See You Around is how well the trio works together. “I-89” is a simple ditty that they elevate with their intertwining voices. “Waitsfield” gets all three involved in a delightful little instrumental. “Close It Down” is an absolutely beautiful piece of music, each of our three players/singers contributing to the whole, laying back when needed, stepping forward – as Watkins does with her colorful fiddle playing – only when the song calls for it. It’s perfect.

I’m With Her close their debut record by paying tribute to another extraordinary woman, Gillian Welch. Their nearly version of Welch’s “Hundred Miles” is haunting, showcasing how well their voices work together. It’s a great capper to a lovely first record from what I hope is not a one-off collaboration. I want more, and I want it as soon as possible.

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As you read this, news has just broken that WLUP, a well-loved classic rock station that has served Chicago for 40 years, has been sold to Christian broadcaster K-LOVE. It will switch formats next week, replacing a playlist that includes some of the best and most iconic music of the past few decades with one that only includes “positive and encouraging” bland Christian pop. This has naturally caused some outrage here, and a lot of that outrage is leveled at K-LOVE, who already has a station in this market. (I guess they’re going for 100% market saturation.)

And it’s always tough for me when things like this happen, because when I tout the Christian artists I love, what people think I’m talking about is the stuff K-LOVE plays – surface-level, safe, all sounding the same, geared toward soccer moms and worship leaders. I generally can’t stand that stuff. There are certainly musical reasons for that, since all of that stuff sounds the same to me, with the same production value and same chords. But there are more personal reasons too. Generally I want the same thing from music based in faith that I want from all the music I listen to: an authentic perspective. I want to see the world through the eyes of songwriters. The music on K-LOVE is, by and large, part of a system that squeezes all that authenticity out, leaving hollow praise and platitudes.

Taken on a spectrum, most of the Christian music I adore is as far from K-LOVE as possible. But there are other artists who are trying with all they have to redeem the industry from within, working in a similar sound but bringing a true perspective and real heart to it. Audrey Assad is one of those, and I’ve been all but obsessed with her new album, Evergreen, since receiving it in late January. (I pledged money to help make it, and in return got the download more than a month early.)

Assad is a stunning singer, a good piano player and a very fine songwriter. She has the ethereal quality of someone like Enya, but a more heightened melodic sense, writing flowing melodies often over odd time signatures. Evergreen is the 34-year-old’s fifth album, and hidden in its backstory is a crisis of faith, a deconstruction of a lot of what she has held fast to for her whole life. But unlike records from similar places by the likes of Derek Webb and David Bazan, Assad’s is reaffirming, coming through a painful time with the core of her faith intact.

And while some of these songs, like the fairly typical “The Joy of the Lord,” don’t betray any of that backstory, there are some that bleed with genuine pain. “Unfolding” is one of my very favorites, Assad laying down a spare piano backdrop to ask piercing questions: “How do I grieve what I can’t let go, how do I mourn what I cannot know?” The chorus is a prayer of confusion and doubt: “Oh my God, I don’t know what this was, am I the child of your love or just chaos unfolding?” “Irrational Season” follows the same path: “Over the skyline to see the spheres, I lift my eyes to the heavens, nothing sensible has yet appeared in this irrational season…”

This may not seem like anything controversial, but these songs with these sentiments would be banned from K-LOVE. You just wouldn’t hear this level of human uncertainty, this sheer broken honesty. These songs and others like them on Evergreen lay the foundation for the broader ones, like the bright “Deliverer,” or the title track, on which Assad sings, “Out past the fear, doubt becomes wonder.” That’s such a great line, especially for someone like me trying to turn doubt into wonder on a daily basis.

The songs of reconciliation here are the best ones, for my money, and none of them strike me quite as hard as “Drawn to You,” the extraordinary closer. It’s a psalm, as if from the pen of David himself, sung from the depths of despair, and it doesn’t offer anything simple. It does offer possibly the best musical depiction I have heard of that inner ache, that pull toward the divine, toward something bigger than ourselves: “After everything I’ve had, after everything I’ve lost, Lord I know this much is true, I’m still drawn to you.” It’s a ton-of-bricks song for me, and I probably won’t be able to articulate why.

I know most people reading this will probably not be able to tell the difference between Audrey Assad’s work and what you hear on K-LOVE. But to me, the difference is enormous. Evergreen is an intensely personal record, its songs of joy earned through tears, its songs of faith drawn from a real place. Her work is as close to the modern Christian realm as I can stand. But there are songs on here I love like I wrote them, songs that speak to me the way they clearly spoke to her. K-LOVE is pushing a product. Audrey Assad is making art, and I love her for it.

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

See you in line Tuesday morning.