Last week I discussed Between the Buried and Me, a band so complex that even some people I know who gravitate toward musicianship as an end in itself find them daunting. In retrospect, I should have saved them for this week’s column, to provide contrast.

I used to believe that complexity automatically meant quality, and that because you can write a 30-minute suite with 12 sections labeled with Roman numerals, that makes you better than bands who can’t do that. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve started more and more sentences with “but as I’ve grown older.” I’ve also come to appreciate simplicity as an ideal. I still get annoyed when I hear those same four generic chords being used again and again, but I have grown to love simple songs performed in simple ways.

Here’s a case in point: my blind fascination with all kinds of technical metal music led me to miss out on punk entirely. I was in my 20s before I heard the Clash, or the Ramones, or the Sex Pistols, and I frankly dismissed a lot of what they had to offer. Green Day was one of the first punk-ish bands I really listened to (I know, the shame), and by that time the entire idea of punk had been co-opted and commodified. What I didn’t understand then was that punk, as a movement, was partially about the democratization of music. It was a reaction to the notion that musical education (which is, historically, reserved for the rich) is necessary to be a musician, and a refutation of prog rock and all it stood for.

Of course, I love me some prog rock, but do I still think chops are the most important element in determining a band’s worth? Nah. Last night I went to see Aimee Mann play a free show in downtown Chicago. She’s great – she’s a tremendous songwriter, one of my very favorites, and a strong singer and performer. Did she do anything on stage last night that made me think she could out-play John Petrucci? Or even some of the guitar players I know personally? Nope. Mann writes straightforward, strummable folk-rock songs. But they’re genius.

I’m almost ashamed to admit this one as well, but one of the first sorta-kinda-punk bands I got into was MxPx. I first gravitated toward them because they were sold in Bibles, Books and Things, the Christian bookstore near my home in Massachusetts. This is because they were on Tooth and Nail Records, which made its name selling edgier bands to Christian kids who couldn’t stand Petra. I was, at the time, really into anything I could find at Bibles, Books and Things, so I loved Life in General, the band’s third album, and I’ve stuck with them.

I’m so loyal that I Kickstarted their new self-titled album several months ago, and when it arrived all shiny in my inbox a couple weeks ago, I confirmed something I had long suspected: I am never going to hate this band. In a very general way, all of their songs sound the same – they’re loud, fast and melodic, the very definition of pop-punk. And it took a lot of Bad Religion records to come to the realization that the sameness isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. MxPx has been playing in the same sandbox for more than 25 years, and they don’t leave it on this new album.

But what we have here is 11 fast, fun, hummable tunes, and I like every one of them. This album is in and out in 30 minutes, which is about the right length for a pop-punk record anyway, and in this case leaves me wanting more. As befits a self-titled record a quarter-century into their run, MxPx is about looking back at how far the band has come, and in doing so they seem to have captured some of the fire they played with in their early days. Quick opener “Rolling Strong,” standout “Let’s Ride,” “Uptown Streets” (which sports my favorite guitar riff here), “20/20 Hindsight,” “The Way We Do,” and on and on – these are tunes dripping with nostalgia, and with pride.

And yes, this breaks no new ground whatsoever. Mike Herrera still sounds like a bratty 17-year-old. (He’s 41 now.) Yuri Riley still plays the drums like he’s outrunning a train. Everything sounds exactly as you remember it, if you remember MxPx. This should be a detriment. I should be expecting a band on its 12th album to try new things, go new places. But I don’t care. I’m really enjoying this album, as I have every MxPx album I’ve heard since I was 17. No shame. This is just fun.

If you were to put Punch Brothers on the absolute other end of the musical spectrum, I’d be hard pressed to disagree. Where MxPx is loud and brash, Chris Thile’s prog-grass outfit is quiet and considered. The MxPx boys can certainly play, but they’re not virtuosos by any stretch of the imagination. Meanwhile the five Brothers are all masters at their instruments – Thile is a once-in-a-generation kind of player, and he’s somehow found a band that doesn’t feel like his backup dancers. They match him perfectly. While Mike Herrera would probably be kicked out of Lake Woebegone, Thile has been hosting A Prairie Home Companion for years now. (It’s called Live From Here now, but it’s the same show.)

So what could they possibly have in common? Like MxPx, Punch Brothers break no new ground on their new album,All Ashore. It’s their fifth, and by now the quintet’s sound is well established – they use the traditional bluegrass lineup of mandolin, guitar, fiddle, banjo and bass to create complex musical excursions, and the occasional killer pop song. Last time out, on an album called The Phosphorescent Blues, the Brothers debuted drums and percussion, pushing their sound to new places, but here they return to the traditional instrumentation they’re known for.

And if you need further proof that you don’t need to innovate to create fantastic music, this record should do it. These nine songs are simply wonderful. They’re all originals, and two of them are complex instrumentals, while the rest find Thile in fine voice, his twisty lyrics telling tales of an America in pain. The seven-minute title track sets the tone well, spinning a story of a family falling to pieces with a delicate eye for detail. Thile gives himself a vocal workout on “The Angel of Doubt,” on which his whisper cuts through the silence and his swaying sing-speak final verse comes closer to rap than he ever has. And on “Just Look at This Mess” the band embraces a gorgeous sense of dynamics, moving from sparse to sweeping in five minutes.

If you’re a fan of this band, there’s nothing on All Ashore you haven’t heard before. “Jumbo” is the down-home bluegrass one, this time with a political bent. “The Gardener” is the slow one with the beautiful harmonies. “Three Dots and a Dash” is the workout, the five Brothers circling around each other, fingers flailing. “It’s All Part of the Plan” is the single, and the most hummable one. This falls into familiar patterns, but you won’t care. Just listen to these arrangements, to the way that each instrument finds it space, then makes room. Listen to how astonishing the playing is on “Jungle Bird,” how natural the build is on “Mess,” how typically extraordinary every element of the closer “Like It’s Going Out of Style” is.

Every bit of All Ashore is thoughtfully considered, every moment carefully crafted to showcase what this band does. That they don’t do anything new is in no way a detriment. There is no other band like this one, and if we’ve heard everything they’re capable of, and the next dozen Punch Brothers records sound exactly like this one, I won’t be upset or disappointed. You don’t need to break new ground to build, and they’ve built something wonderful here.

Next week, I’m in Nashville to see the Prayer Chain reunite after more than 20 years. Believe me that I’m going to write about that. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

One of my favorite things on the internet is a YouTube channel called Lost in Vegas.

It features two men from Vegas (naturally) named Ryan and George. They’re hip-hop heads by nature, and they appear to have grown up without hearing much in the way of other music. And on their YouTube channel, they take recommendations of rock and metal songs for them to listen to, and react to them live. That’s the entire concept, but oh man, the giddy joy of watching these two listen to, say, “Holy Wars” by Megadeth or “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” by Van Halen or anything – literally anything – by Metallica is invigorating.

What I love most about Lost in Vegas is watching these guys hear for the first time what I heard in these songs years ago. Hearing old songs through new ears has been a treat, especially old metal songs, because as I’ve grown older, I’ve moved more and more away from aggressive music. It’s not that I don’t still love me some Ride the Lightning, because I most certainly do. It’s just that the sound has grown a little stale for me, and it takes something pretty special to get me interested in new metal these days.

I’m not absolutely sure how this ended up happening, but I’ve found myself buying traditional metal records by the likes of Sepultura and Mastodon and even Metallica by rote, and enjoying them, but not really giving them my full attention. I sometimes even forget that Metallica gave us the mostly excellent Hardwired… to Self Destruct not long ago, and that I liked it. If you look at the metal albums I’ve been excited about in recent years, none of them are straight down the thrash lane. I think I’m looking to recapture that first-blush sense of awe I see in Ryan and George of Lost in Vegas, and after hearing the standard metal sound for 30 years, I’m more inured to it.

All of that said, I’ve been quite excited about the two metal albums I’m talking about today, and true to form, neither of them are traditional in any sense. First up is San Francisco’s Deafheaven, and I’ve been jazzed to hear their new album for months. It’s called Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, and it follows two extraordinary albums, 2013’s Sunbather and 2015’s New Bermuda, albums that filled me with the same sense of discovery I felt when I heard Rust in Peace for the first time.

Deafheaven is, frankly, unlike any other metal band I’ve ever encountered. They’re almost insanely heavy, in a way that feels like the entire ocean crashing down on you. It’s the kind of heavy that is almost gentle after a while, enveloping you like a cocoon. The songs are long, routinely stretching past 10 minutes, and the band’s sense of dynamics is so good that at the end of each of these extended adventures, you feel like you’ve been somewhere. The fascinating thing about Deafheaven for me is that they’re a loud, abrasive band. The guitars fill whatever room they’re played in, and George Clarke’s vocals are demonic things – his screams and screeches are like sandpaper against your skin. But with all of this, they’re probably the most devoted metal band on earth to the concept of musical beauty.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is beautiful. It’s even more gorgeous than its predecessors, and it feels purposeful – the first sound you hear is piano, there are plenty of clean guitar sections, and Clarke’s lyrics are pure poetry. (I’m not kidding about that. Here is a bit from standout “Honeycomb”: “I’m reluctant to stay sad, life beyond is a field of flowers, my love is a nervous child lapping from the glowing lagoon of their presence, my love is a bulging, blue-faced fool hung from the throat by sunflower stems…”) The band can still bring the heavy, and it does throughout, but even that heaviness is layered and full of light.

My favorites here are the three longer ones. The aforementioned “Honeycomb” is a powerhouse, bigger in sound than I can even describe. There are moments when they sound like a straight-ahead rock band here, lead guitars spinning out melody, and the sound gets gentler near the end, taking on post-rock qualities. The chiming guitars that close out “Honeycomb” are magical. “Canary Yellow” is a masterpiece, beginning like a Cure song, building into a monolith and then closing in harmony. “On and on we choke on an everlasting handsome night,” Clarke screams. “My lover’s blood rushes right through me, wild, fantastic.” “Glint” and closer “Worthless Animal” are similarly superb, building and crashing and building again to an extraordinary climax.

This is the kind of band for whom four-minute songs are interludes, but I don’t want to give short shrift to tracks like “Near” and “Night People,” which contribute immensely to the sound and flow of this record. I’m not sure if this is my favorite of Deafheaven’s efforts – there’s something a little more human about this one, where Sunbather felt totally alien – but it is certainly the most delicate and instantly appealing of them. I feel like this band is on a journey, and the final destination is one of almost impossible beauty, and I’m very much enjoying being along for the ride.

Between the Buried and Me don’t traffic in beautiful, but they do offer the other side of my brain – the one fascinated by equations and logic puzzles and plot twists – plenty to chew on. They started as an intelligent post-metal band, but have since evolved into one of the most complex and mind-boggling acts on earth. The series of albums starting with 2007’s Colors is one of the most dense bodies of work I can name, each record worthy of years of study. They have offered up nothing but conceptual pieces for years, giving us difficult plotlines and music that sounds virtually impossible for five people to play. (I’ve seen them live. They can do it.)

A few months ago I reviewed the first half of their new album, Automata. For reasons passing my understanding, Sumerian Records chose to break Automata up into two EPs, rather than issuing the complete work at once. Now that I have that complete work with the release of Automata II, that decision makes even less sense. I understand that the record company makes more money when I pay twice for something, but as a whole, Automata is the same length as its predecessor, Coma Ecliptic, and far shorter than The Parallax II, still the best BTBAM album. I’ve heard the band suggest that the density of the material over an extended running time might be too much for audiences, hence the split, but come on. We’re fans of this stuff. We know what we’re getting.

We get about 33 minutes of it on Automata II, and it’s remarkably ambitious and adventurous stuff. The first thing they hit you with is the album’s 13-minute centerpiece, “The Proverbial Bellow,” and within two minutes they’ve out-Dream Theatered Dream Theater. The band’s fascination with synthesizers and keyboard sounds hits its zenith here, some portions of this song feeling more like a film score than anything else. It’s an incredible piece of music, packing in an album’s worth of melodies, twists and turns, and it gets heavy as hell, Tommy Rogers whipping out that trademark growl around the four-minute mark.

Automata is the story of a man whose dreams are broadcast to the world for entertainment, and in this final chapter, this man confronts the company behind it, called Voice of Trespass, and gets his happy ending. Positive resolutions are new ground for this band – their last two concept records ended in death – and they’ve broken new musical ground at the same time. “Glide” is a two-minute interlude built around an accordion figure, of all things, while “Voice of Trespass” is BTBAM’s first foray into jazz-metal. The song features a full horn section brassing its way through the din, and it’s kind of awesome. Rogers puts on an Alice Cooper growl and acts as ringmaster for this circus, and it’s convincing and captivating. And then there’s the callback to Automata I’s “Condemned to the Gallows,” which might not feel as impressive had they issued this album in one piece.

Ten-minute closer “Grid” brings us back to Between the Buried and Me’s signature sound, and it’s as complicated and satisfying an ending as you could ask for. It still strikes me as amazing that these five guys can not only come up with music this tricky and intricate, but can keep it all straight and play it on stage. Just trying to keep the myriad sections of “Grid” in order in my mind would be beyond my musical abilities. That they continue to seek out new territory while building on this sound is beyond impressive.

I do wish we’d been given Automata all at once, since it works best as a single piece of music. But release strategy aside, this album contains exactly what BTBAM fans have come to expect from this band, and several innovations in their sound as well. As a 68-minute work, it stands with the best of what BTBAM has offered, and if putting it out in bite-sized chunks helped people come to terms with it and absorb it, then it was worth it. It’s music that deserves the extra time it takes to unravel it and fully understand it. With Automata, they have once again proven that they are nowhere near typical.

Next week, probably MXPX and Punch Brothers. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’ve been a fan of Nashville-based spiritual pop band The Choir for nearly 30 years. I can’t think of a better time to be into them than right now.

I will fully cop to not being entirely objective when it comes to the Choir. I love very few bands the way I love this one – they have been in my personal pantheon for the majority of my life. I try my best to review Choir albums the same way I would review any other band’s work, and I’m never sure if I have succeeded. Their music means so much to me that stepping outside of myself is difficult, if not impossible. When a Choir album hits with me, it hits deeply.

Why is this? Well, I can run down the reasons, but they probably won’t be convincing. I’ve told the story numerous times before, but the band’s 1990 masterpiece Circle Slide changed my life. It was the first music like it I had ever heard – searching and human and yearning and absolutely soul-filling. I have bought Circle Slide five times now – on cassette, on CD, on vinyl, as part of a box set and in a remastered anniversary edition – and I listen to it every few weeks. In nearly three decades, I have not grown tired of it.

And of course I bought everything that came before Circle Slide, and have bought everything after it. I’m not actually sure there’s a catalog of music I enjoy more. The Choir makes music that speaks to my soul, that seems tailor-made just for me. Over the years I have appreciated their honesty, their willingness to let their listeners in on their doubts, their fears and their lives. I almost feel like I know Steve Hindalong and Derri Daugherty. I’ve listened as their kids were born, and as they grew up. (“It Hurts To Say Goodbye,” from 2014’s fantastic Shadow Weaver, is the latest song about their children, this one about the homes they have built for themselves as adults. It’s remarkable to me that you can trace their lives through song this way.)

The Choir started out in 1983, and amazingly, they’re still going strong. The band is fully independent at this point, existing on the generosity of fans who pre-order their new music up to a year in advance. The continued existence of the Choir is just one of the reasons I love crowdfunding, and I’m more than happy to pony up for this band’s new work. And when I said I can’t think of a better time to be into them than right now, that new work is the reason. Because for the past few years there has been a lot of new Choir material, and there’s no sign that the flood will slow down soon.

I have three – THREE – new Choir-related albums that I have been listening to nearly non-stop for a few weeks now. Together, they paint a strong picture of the current state of the band. In fact, I’d advocate for buying all three (because of course I would) and listening in a row. These three records complement each other marvelously, and together are the best argument I could make for becoming a fan.

You may recall that a couple weeks ago, I reviewed the Choir’s 15th album, Bloodshot, here in this space. You may also recall that I was slightly underwhelmed by it, and you will probably not be surprised to learn that it has grown on me considerably since I scribbled down my initial impressions. Most of what I said initially still stands, but I’ve grown attached to these songs and gained respect for the way they decided to make this album.

Because on first blush, it’s the least Choir-sounding Choir album in a long time – the songs are all straightforward, the production is earthy and Derri Daugherty’s floaty guitar sound is in short supply. But that tone fits the subject matter well – Bloodshot is an honest and raw accounting of drummer Steve Hindalong’s divorce, and its best songs paint a sad portrait of two people unable to make their marriage work, no matter how hard they try. Opener “Bloodshot Eyes” is stunning, a slow burn that, in one of Hindalong’s most incisive lyrics, puts you right there as two tired and bleary people talk through the night, hoping for some kind of understanding that never comes.

About half the songs on Bloodshot are about Hindalong’s divorce, and they’re painful things. As I said before, the decision to keep the darkness out of much of the bright sound of this record (“Bloodshot Eyes” notwithstanding) feels intentional, as if darker music would have made the experience unbearable. Some of these songs are killers, like “Birds, Bewildered” and “House of Blues,” and the finale, “The Time Has Come,” remains the definition of a Choir classic – it’s a gorgeous hymn about forgiveness, for others and for ourselves.

If you remember my previous review, you’ll recall that I’ve always loved the darker half of this record, and I had some issues with the lighter, sillier material. Rockers like “Summer Rain” and “Magic” remain wonderful, and while I will never love “Californians On Ice,” it’s grown on me. I’m especially fond of the saxophone break and the soaring guitar section before the last verse. Similarly, I’ve become more enamored of “The Way You Always Are,” Hindalong’s one vocal turn on this record. It’s a little simplistic, but it’s fun.

Mostly, though, I think Bloodshot works as a whole, an opinion I’ve only recently come to. The lighter songs balance off the heavier ones nicely, and the choice to include a reprise at track eight creates a nice demarcation between the darker material and the more hopeful final third. I still wish the band had landed on some stranger arrangements here and there, but I’ve come to think of the singular sound of this album, so different from any other Choir record, as a strength.

The more straight-ahead rock leanings of Bloodshot provide a beautiful contrast to the second of our three albums, Derri Daugherty’s The Color of Dreams. For years the idea of a full-blown Derri solo record has been an in-joke among Choir fans – he’s basically been promising one for nearly 20 years. Now that it’s here, I can say it was worth every day we waited for it. It’s a gentler, folksier album, as you might expect, and with Hindalong producing, co-writing and playing on every track, it feels like getting a second Choir record weeks after the first one.

But this is a deeply personal album for Daugherty. (Full disclosure: I wrote the bio sheet for this album, and interviewed Daugherty about the songs.) It was created during a difficult time, as Daugherty uprooted his life and moved back to Los Angeles to take care of his ailing father. The elder Daugherty died as the album was nearing completion, and his spirit lives in these songs. Most obviously, there is “Your Chair,” my vote for the prettiest song of 2018. It’s a gorgeous acoustic number, Daugherty recounting some of the, frankly, amazing things his father did during his life: “I’ve been with you to the South Pacific, patrolling the Tokyo Bay, landed a plane with a flashlight in a field in Iowa, when your runaway ’44 Ford rolled into Bakersfield, we weren’t scared, me riding on the sofa and you sitting in your chair…” It’s absolutely lovely.

But the sense of enjoying life while it is here is all over this album. The title track is dedicated to a longtime friend whose wife of 30 years died recently. “Baby Breathe” was written for Daugherty’s daughter, to encourage her to take time and appreciate what she has. Terry Taylor’s wonderful “Between Nashville and L.A.” was written specifically for this record, and it captures Daugherty’s journeys between his two lives. Even “We’ve Got the Moon,” reprised here from Bloodshot in a strummier version, is about grabbing the chance for a more interesting life before that chance is gone.

The Color of Dreams is a more varied album than Bloodshot, Daugherty working in a number of styles. Standout “Unhypnotized” is a propulsive acoustic rocker about trying to see one’s faith clearly. (Hindalong’s lyrics for this one are amazing.) Paul Averitt’s “Saying Goodbye” is a tricky folk song – try to follow its extra beats on first listen – and the slow burn “I Want You to Be” contains all the darkness that you won’t find on the Choir album. The latter song is about the ways we want to control our relationships, both with each other and with God.

The album ends with a delightful cover of Peter Bradley Adams’ “So Are You to Me,” and then six ambient tracks that recast themes from the record in a more expansive instrumental form. The ambient numbers are a nice bonus, and given how little of Daugherty’s watery shoegaze guitar sound made it onto the Choir album and his own effort, it’s nice to hear a good 20 minutes of him playing like only he can. The Color of Dreams is terrific, and together with Bloodshot it provides a more complete story.

But the Choir’s not done yet. The third of their trilogy has just landed in the form of a 25th anniversary package for their Kissers and Killers album, one that looks back and forward. In 1993, after touring Circle Slide, the Choir went independent, creating their loudest and most abrasive effort and then self-releasing it. Kissers and Killers filters the then-burgeoning grunge phenomenon through the Choir’s particular lenses, but it doesn’t sound dated in the slightest. It’s just loud, roaring rock and roll, Steve and Derri turning out some of their most explosive songs. The title track may be the fastest steamroller of a tune they’ve ever written, while pop songs like “Amazing” and “Weather Girl” are given extraordinary energy from the fuzzed-out guitars.

The Choir has remastered the album and pressed it onto vinyl for the first time, but that’s not all. They’ve also completely re-recorded it in a stripped-down acoustic setting, and the results are revelatory. This isn’t just a cheap point-a-mic-at-Derri affair, it’s a full reimagining of Kissers and Killers, shifting tempos and adorning these songs with new arrangements. It transforms these songs from steel wool to silk, and in every case the reinvention works beautifully.

I’m in love with the new version of the title track, with its gently sloping guitar, its swell saxophone parts and its tambourine mirroring the double-time drums of the original. I’m also in love with the new “Weather Girl,” which emphasizes the lovely melody, and the new “Grace,” which frees this very pretty song from the strange sonic landscape it was originally rendered in. Hindalong has grown as a singer considerably since 1993, and he reprises his vocal turn on “Let the Sky Fall,” eclipsing his earlier performance.

Kissers and Killers ends with its best track, the sweet “Love Your Mind,” and I think I may love this new recasting best of all. It’s similar to the version that ended up on De-Plumed back in 2010, but there’s something about this fuller take that brings out the emotion in Daugherty’s voice. The wavering cello, the bells, everything works so well. I can’t stop listening to it. I’ve loved this song for 25 years, and I’ve never loved it more.

So yeah, listening to both versions of Kissers and Killers in this new package will give you those missing elements of the Choir’s sound: the amps-ablaze rock band they can often be, and the nuanced interpreters of their own work that they’ve become. Add that to Bloodshot’s raw, honest pop-rock and The Color of Dreams’ more reflective yet still full and varied sound, and you have everything the Choir does well. I’m beyond grateful to have all three of these new records and to have one of my favorite bands continue to create such soul-stirring music, even after so long.

If I’ve convinced you to give the band a shot, you can get Bloodshot and Kissers and Killers here. You can pick up The Color of Dreams from Lo-Fidelity here.

Next week, things get loud. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

As you read this, I am in France. Yes, that France.

I’m visiting for nine days for work, and while I can’t say for sure, I’m betting that the fact that I’m on the clock hasn’t dampened my excitement for my first visit to the land of my ancestors. I’m in Toulouse, an 800-year-old city in the country’s southwest region, and probably having the time of my life.

Which means this week you’re not getting my best effort. Next week’s will certainly be more substantial than this week’s, but it will also be an easy one for me to write, as you’ll see. This week, though, I thought I’d run down a couple of upcoming releases I’m excited about, since this is supposed to be a column about the geeky thrill of new music. So here are some records coming out soon that I am geekily thrilled about.

We’re in a massive month for new tunes, and I hope I’m going to have time to listen to everything I’m picking up. I’m pretty jazzed for the new Deafheaven album, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. That’s a great title, and from everything I’ve heard, the band leapt to a new level on this one. I’m also quite looking forward to Between the Buried and Me’s Automata II, which will conclude the album they began a few months ago. It still seems to me that there was no reason to break this record up into two releases, but we’ll see.

Punch Brothers will have a new one called All Ashore in a couple weeks. Chris Thile is, as I’ve said before, a once-in-a-generation kind of musician, and I’m always interested in whatever he comes up with. I’ve heard nothing about this new one, other than the two songs that have been released from it, so it feels to me like just another Punch Brothers record, but they’ve all been pretty amazing so far. I’m very ready for a new Cowboy Junkies album too, after too long a wait.

August is slimmer pickings, but there are certainly some I’m looking forward to. The big one next month is Death Cab for Cutie, who will return with Thank You For Today on August 17. Everything I’ve heard has been godawful boring, but I hope they can deliver a good argument for their continued existence. I’m also looking forward to Lightsleeper, the first album from Neil and Liam Finn together. Neil is just coming off of his best album in many years, Out of Silence, and Liam has always been a swell writer. This should be very good.

Other things from August include the first Ultraphonix record, and I say first because I hope there will be more. Ultraphonix is a collaboration between singer Corey Glover of Living Colour and guitarist George Lynch, and anything that gets me more Corey Glover is going to be worth my money. I have long been an Enuff Znuff fan, as anyone who has followed this column probably knows, and on August 10 they will issue their first record without Donnie Vie. This, of course, has me worried, but I will buy it anyway and see how it is. Donnie is working on a new thing now too, and I’ve supported him on Pledgemusic.

September opens with Paul McCartney’s Egypt Station and Paul Simon’s In the Blue Light, in case you were wondering if any legends would pop up in this list. McCartney’s record is all new songs, and I’m always interested to hear new tunes from Paul, because he doesn’t have to write any ever again. He makes new music now solely because he wants to, and that’s the best kind of freedom. Simon’s record revisits some forgotten gems from his catalog and, judging by the lineup of musicians on this thing, reinvents them. Very much looking forward to both.

Also in September is a new Orbital album, a new one from Low, a comeback from Nile Rodgers and Chic, a new Joy Formidable record, the first new Riverside album since their guitarist died, a new Richard Thompson record, a vault release from Prince and a four-CD box set of unreleased music from Tom Petty. Given all that, October can’t match up yet – we’ll have a new Tom Odell album, a new Coheed and Cambria rock opera, a new Twenty-One Pilots and the final EP from Minus the Bear.

I’m also anticipating the new Tourniquet album Gazing at Medusa somewhere in there, and the new one from Jimmy Brown of Deliverance, called Eraserhead. And sometime later this month, a five-CD reissue of Horrendous Disc, one of the most important Daniel Amos albums, will land in my mailbox. That will take some time to get through all on its own.

So yeah, there’s a bounty of new stuff headed our way. And my usual problem applies: I have less and less time to absorb it all and form thoughts about it. I am genuinely hopeful that after I return from France, I can buckle down and get you the weekly column that you deserve. Thanks for reading even when I don’t deliver. I appreciate you more than you know.

Next week, the Choir scores the hat trick. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I think I’ve been waiting for the anger.

Ever since November 2016, I’ve been looking to art (as I always do) as a way of figuring out how to cope with the world and what it has become. I’ve spent a lot of that intervening time feeling helpless and angry, and I think I’ve been expecting the music made during the Trump era to feel similarly helpless and angry. Marillion’s FEAR remains the bleakest and most forthright piece of work about this worldwide wave of hatred, and I think I’ve been waiting for more like it.

But with rare exceptions, like Ministry’s juvenile AmeriKKKant, the anger just hasn’t been as prevalent as I thought it would be. Instead, I think we’re seeing a different angle of the Trump phenomenon: our artists have grown thoughtful and contemplative. Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer leads this pack – it’s a phenomenally well-considered set of songs about not allowing prejudice and oppression to define you or hold you back. It feels like exactly the kind of record we need now, defiant and celebratory, but in a beautifully thoughtful way.

We’ve since had albums by Frank Turner and Darlingside and others that have approached Trumpworld with graceful reflection and a sense that we can all be better, that we can all do better than this. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were the new trend: albums that try to make sense of our dark times, ones that slowly work their way toward shining a light.

I think it’s possible to be optimistic these days, but only if you don’t really see what’s going on, or let it affect you. That’s not what I’m talking about here. These are albums by very aware artists, and instead of miring in muck or lashing out, they have decided to work through their pain in song, and share their contemplation and encouragement.

Case in point: From the first song of Florence and the Machine’s new album High as Hope, it feels different. Florence Welch is well known for building huge songs out of heartbreak, for crafting anthems that build and crest like waves. Her first three albums have all been stirring, massive affairs, so when High as Hope begins with the gentle, insistent “June,” you know something’s up. “June” is a song of encouragement for the LGBTQ community – June is Pride month, and Florence sings about the day of the Pulse nightclub shooting, and about living in a world that despises you for who you are. “Hold on to each other,” she sings in that powerhouse voice as the music finally reaches a crescendo.

Most of High as Hope follows suit. It is Welch’s most subdued record, tackling personal issues and extrapolating them out into messages of strength for the world at large. “Hunger” is deeply intimate, despite its galloping beat and bright piano – it finds Welch admitting to her eating disorder, and using her hunger as a metaphor for the emptiness inside us all. It’s the closest thing here to a pop single, and it’s uncommonly powerful. “Big God” finds Welch looking to give her worries and inner turmoil to a higher power as she suffers through a breakup. “Patricia” is dedicated to Patti Smith, but talks about toxic masculinity and the Me Too movement.

I’m more than fond of “Grace,” a song named after Welch’s sister. It’s a specific song: “I’m sorry I ruined your birthday,” Welch sings at the start, and she uses the song’s gorgeous chorus as a way of apologizing and letting her sister know how much she is loved. But it feels universal, this song. It’s absurd that it does – this is very clearly a letter written from one person to another, meant for an audience of one – but it does. Its message of reconnection and enduring love makes me cry each time.

I’m also quite fond of “100 Years,” which includes Welch’s response to the direction of the world: “I believe in love, and the darker it gets, the more I do, try and fill us with your hate and we will shine a light…” It’s a deliriously empowering song, marking the 100-year anniversary of women being given the right to vote in Great Britain. With all of that, she ends the album with “No Choir,” a metatextual number about her fear that happiness will ruin her songwriting, and her full acceptance that happiness is worth that price. If this were to be the last Florence and the Machine song, it would close the book on her body of work nicely.

I have no reason to believe it is, of course, which is the best possible news. I’ve been a Florence Welch fan since “Dog Days Are Over,” but High as Hope is my hands-down favorite of her records. It’s obviously the product of a great deal of thought about how to respond to a world gone mad, and she landed on empowerment, encouragement, hope and togetherness as the antidotes we need. High as Hope is not a joyous record, but it feels like a beautiful and difficult journey toward joy, which mirrors the tenor of the world. I hope we can get there.

I don’t think anyone was expecting anger from Dawes, the breezy Los Angeles band led by brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith. And of course, they have not delivered anger on their new album Passwords. But what they have given us is their most thoughtful record, a mostly slow and meditative work that finds the Goldsmiths surveying the wreckage of the world and trying to offer peace and hope. Happily, Passwords sidesteps every cliché that could have tripped it up, and instead goes for deep feeling, making this probably the strongest Dawes album.

Opener “Living in the Future” is the only one that cranks up the amps, and it sports a tricky, twisty riff and lyrics about wishing the world were simpler. “Stay Down” follows up on this line of thought directly – it’s a strummy acoustic ditty about hiding your head in the sand. But thankfully, that’s not the course of action the band recommends, as the next song, “Crack the Case,” makes clear. A delicate song about sitting down with one’s enemies, “Crack the Case” is the emotional core of this record: “Countless revisions of history, trying to tell us the future between each commercial break, I wanna call off the cavalry, declare no winners or losers and forgive our shared mistakes…”

From there, Passwords steps into more familiar territory with songs about love and loss, but even these are more thoughtful than the band has been in the past. “My Greatest Invention” is a well-observed tale of a man who spins stories of his lover to mask his loneliness. “Telescope” might be the best song on this record, marrying its bubbling riff to a story of an abandoned child searching for his father. The song revolves around the line “the stronger the telescope, the more stars there are,” and it’s a wonderful metaphor.

I’m a fan of the final song, “Time Flies Either Way.” It’s about working through fear and confusion and trying to accept life day by day, and the song is as gentle and breezy as Dawes has ever been. The final verse emphasizes connection between us as the way forward, and it’s lovely. I would never suggest that a band like Dawes has created a treatise on Trumpism and a healing balm for our times, but I do see evidence of a more thoughtful nature on this album, and I think that’s becoming the de facto response. I may have been waiting for the anger, but the artists I love have surprised me with a better approach, and I’m thankful for it.

Next week, I’m not sure yet. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.