Next week we’re going to talk about Tool’s first album in 13 years. Yes, I’m excited about it. The single is pretty amazing, in that Tool way in which it doesn’t seem to do much, but builds and builds almost imperceptibly until it’s raging by the end. I don’t know of another band who does this quite this well, outside of the realm of post-rock, and if they can sustain that over 86 minutes, they’ll win me over.

But that’s next week. This week I thought we’d talk about music that is kind of the polar opposite of Tool’s work. I think some people underestimate how serious I am when I say I listen to everything. I literally listen to everything I can get my hands on. My musical brain needs a lot of different kinds of stimulation, so going from Sinatra to Mesghuggah doesn’t seem that odd to me. I like ugliness as well as beauty, about the same.

Where bands like Tool are often going for the ugliest beauty they can create, the two artists we have on tap today are aiming for a sort of beautiful ugliness. Both of them are telling difficult stories, some as old as time but as relevant as the daily news, and making the prettiest and most engaging music they can as backdrop for them. And while one of them is right in their wheelhouse, the other has stepped so far outside it as to be unrecognizable.

We’ll start with the former. Iamthemorning is a duo from Russia, consisting of vocalist Marjana Semkina and pianist Gleb Kolyadin. Together they create dramatic, classical-influenced music that sounds, for good and ill, like the work of trained musicians. That means it can come off a little mannered, like Kolyadin and Semkina are reading and reciting these pieces, not living them. But if you can deal with that – and if you’re a fan of orchestral music, you pretty much have to deal with that regularly – their work is truly enjoyable.

The fourth Iamthemorning album is called The Bell, and its authors consider it a song cycle in two parts. I like that you can gaze at the artwork that adorns this record, listen to the whole thing and come away thinking that it’s pretty and bright. You have to dig into the lyrics to really understand how bleak it all is, and you need to read about the cover painting to know that it depicts a coffin bell, attached by a string to the inside of a coffin in case of live burial. It’s a metaphor, Semkina says, for knowing that you can call for help if you need to.

The album itself is about (near as I can tell) a woman who is buried alive in the ocean, dies and comes back to haunt her killers. Its lyrics are remarkably dark and hopeless, particularly on tracks like “Blue Sea,” in which our protagonist drowns. The music is unfailingly gorgeous, in total contrast with the anguish of the words. “Sleeping Beauty” is lovely, and it’s only if you dig deeper that you realize it’s about being trapped in a glass coffin. “Lilies” seems particularly influenced by classical piano pieces, Kolyadin pounding out some complex runs while Semkina sings of metaphorical drowning: “The water’s embrace is the same no matter how fast its pace…”

Some of The Bell reminds me of Kate Bush (and, by extension, Tori Amos), particularly the climactic “Salute,” but Iamthemorning have established their own sound by this point, and no one else is doing it. The Bell may be inspired by 19th century stories of cruelty, it feels like a response to the current state of the world as well. It feels like an expression of the helplessness we all feel in the face of things, filtered through this duo’s singular sensibilities. It would be hard for me to say that I enjoyed The Bell, but I definitely came away from it impressed.

By this point you kind of know what you’re going to get with Iamthemorning. Not so Brad Mehldau, as anyone who picked up his new album Finding Gabriel expecting his trademark jazz piano playing can attest. I hope those people weren’t too disappointed, since Mehldau has delivered a bit of a masterpiece here.

Finding Gabriel is a mostly instrumental record of vast scope, employing electronics and rock beats and strings and an array of musicians and vocalists. It was recorded over an 18-month period as Mehldau dedicated himself to a close reading of the Bible, and it serves as a rumination on the promises (both joyful and dreadful) contained within. Most tracks here are accompanied by a Bible verse, all of them from the Old Testament, in which God is jealous and angry and unmoved by suffering. This is rich ground to draw musical inspiration from, and Mehldau uses that foundation to cast his eye on the world, and the rising tide of fascism that seems to be claiming it. This is an album that shouts “deliver us, O Lord,” in nearly every note.

On several of these tracks, Mehldau plays everything. “O Ephraim,” which draws from the book of Hosea, finds him layering his nimble piano playing over a thick bed of synthesizers and drums, all of which he performed. But in equal measure here are songs like “St. Mark is Howling in the City of Night,” a stunning piece of music that incorporates a string trio, electronic pitter-pat drums and the voice of Becca Stevens, singing wordlessly. This song takes so many twists and turns, ending up in a completely different place than it began in.

“The Prophet is a Fool” is one of the more aggressive numbers. It’s a scathing indictment of Donald Trump’s America, and leaves no doubt about it. (“Build that wall,” a crowd chants, while a voice tells us that listening to Trump makes people feel stronger, when in fact it makes them weaker.) Joel Frahm lays down some impressive tenor sax soloing while Mehldau provides a morphing synth bass part that lends a queasiness to the whole piece. It’s the darkest thing here, and it’s remarkable stuff.

In contrast, “Make It All Go Away” is a synth-cloud plea for peace, with Kurt Elling lending his inimitable voice to the track’s rising, yearning sound. That gives way to “Deep Water,” a beautiful song that feels like hands rising up to the sky. It’s taken from Psalms: “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck… I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me.” It sounds like this, Stevens returning to add yearning vocals over the track’s strange treated strings. We finally get to Job on “Proverb of Ashes,” and it’s a workout, with another swell Elling performance.

This whole record is a jaw-dropping surprise from Mehldau, far removed from the paths he usually treads. But he’s found a way to make a record based in ancient scriptures that sounds like now, that draws a straight line from Job and David and Hosea to us, crying out for deliverance. It’s further proof that Mehldau is a treasure, whatever he decides to do. He’s a deeply thoughtful artist with extraordinary chops, and Finding Gabriel is a deeply considered piece of work that will resonate for years to come.

Next week, Tool, of course. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’ve been struggling with how to write about Frank Turner’s new album.

I should start by saying that I’m a fan of Frank’s work. A good friend introduced me to him around the Love, Ire and Song days, and that was at a point in my life when a song like “Photosynthesis” struck a deep chord. Frank writes fist-pumping folk-punk anthems with rapid-fire lyrics about staying true to yourself and remembering where you’re from. For my money he’s never been better than England Keep My Bones, but Positive Songs for Negative People comes very close.

There’s always been something sort of awkward about him too, though, like he’s putting on a show, and the more I listened to last year’s topical Be More Kind, the more I felt a bit of that awkwardness. It was a record that seemed unaware of the both-sides position it was taking, and the privilege it was reveling in when taking it. Don’t get me wrong, I like Be More Kind, but it was at times a case of a white guy lecturing people who are facing threats each day he will never understand.

I was able to put most of that aside and enjoy Be More Kind for what it was: an embrace of love as the cure for our social ills. But I’m having more trouble with the awkwardness of his new one, No Man’s Land. First of all, that’s a title that only an oblivious man would give to this set of tunes, and I’ll be shaking my head at it each time I type it out. No Man’s Land, you see, is a collection of songs about women throughout history, women that Turner apparently feels have not been sung about enough. (Get it? No Man’s Land? Ugh.)

In some cases, he’s right. “The Lioness,” for example, is about Huda Sha’arawi, the founder of the Arab Feminist Union, and she’s certainly someone who should have a folk-rock song written about her. “Silent Key” is about Christa McAuliffe, the New Hampshire teacher who, along with six other astronauts, died in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. I was 12 at the time, and from New England, and to have a song like “Silent Key” dedicated to memorializing her is like marking a moment in my life as well.

I can even understand Turner wanting to write songs about Sister Rosetta Tharpe, too, or Mata Hari, since they’re fascinating figures, even if they’re very well known. These songs find Turner in full Billy Bragg mode, spinning stories, some of them in first person, some as if he is a troubadour telling tales for coins. I can feel his good intentions in each of these songs, too. For instance, I expect he thinks of “I Believed You, William Blake” as a tribute to Catherine Blake, who lived in the shadow of her famous poet husband. Of course, the song is about William through Catherine’s eyes, which illustrates the issue.

And that issue, frankly, is that Frank Turner isn’t the person to write or sing these songs, despite his skill and intentions. He really tries to get beyond his own maleness here, hiring an (almost) entirely female band to bring these songs to life, but it still feels like a man explaining women’s history in a way that is, alas, inescapable. It’s hard to think of this as anything but an ill-advised project from the start, no matter how strong it is or how much I like it.

And I do like it. Turner has grown into a much subtler songwriter, and the best songs here are really strong ones. I question whether serial killer Nannie Doss should be here alongside women like Sha’arawi, but her song, “A Perfect Wife,” gets into her mind in a clever and disturbing way. “The Death of Dora Hand” sounds like an ancient folk number, memorializing a singer killed by accident in Dodge City in 1878. “The Graveyard of the Outcast Dead” is about a cemetery in Southwark where forgotten victims of the sex trade were buried, sung from the point of view of one of those women.

In the end, though, this isn’t an album about celebrating unheralded women from history as much as it is a collection of stories Turner found interesting. (Which explains both “A Perfect Wife” and “I Believed You, William Blake.”) One of the most interesting is “Rescue Annie,” the story of an unidentified woman who died in the river Seine in the 1880s, and whose face was used as the template for the first CPR doll. Turner is fascinated, as any good writer would be, in the dramatic possibilities of a virgin suicide becoming perhaps the most kissed face in history, and on the surface, that works. (“Rescue Annie from the river, with every kiss she is delivered, from the depths and we forgive her for falling in…”)

But this really is a story about a male doctor who stole a dead woman’s face without her permission, which wrecks the metaphor and the poetry completely. I still like the song, but Frank seems unaware that it’s kind of a problematic story, especially on an album he’s dedicated to forgotten women.

That’s kind of what you get on No Man’s Land, though there is one song that really works: the closer, “Rosemary Jane,” about Turner’s mother. It’s a sweet ode, though it is entirely about him and his memories of her. It’s the best thing here, but also further proof that the old maxim – it’s the singer, not the song – is what trips this record up. I still like it, and I still like Frank, and I hope his next batch of songs are purposefully and deliberately all about him and how he sees the world. It’s his best subject and I hope he gets back to it.

* * * * *

That was a lot of words to say “women should tell their own stories,” and with full knowledge of the irony of a man talking about women telling their own stories, here are a couple reviews that prove the point.

Start with the Regrettes, which is one of the best band names I have ever heard. That name bought them at least one record with me, and it was their debut Feel Your Feelings, Fool, and I enjoyed it enough to buy their second. It’s called How Do You Love, and it’s better than the first. Frontwoman Lydia Night is all of 18 years old, and there are certainly some youthful miscalculations here, like the spoken intro. But mostly she and her band impress with the quality of these quick, catchy tunes.

The Regrettes are in the mold of the Runaways, playing simple punky guitar-pop with a witty snarl and an open heart. “Coloring Book” is a song you only write when you’re young, and I have no doubt it’s resonating with people Night’s age all over the country. (“I can be your baby if you want to be mine, I’ll color in the picture if you just draw the lines…”) It convincingly builds from an intimate strum to a big electric crash, and it’s one of my favorite things here.

But I have a lot of favorites here. How Do You Love is a joyous romantic delight. I’d put the likes of “Fog” and “Dead Wrong” up against the best pop of the year, and the Regrettes confidently straddle the line between their pop leanings and their identity as a live, raucous rock band. This second album says loud and proud that the Regrettes are here to stay, and given how young they are, we could be in for decades of good stuff from them.

Of course, all things must come to an end, which is at least some of the story of the new Sleater-Kinney album The Center Won’t Hold. This is the last S-K album that will feature longtime drummer Janet Weiss, who has been with the band since 1996. It’s the end of an era, and it’s fitting that her swan song is this strange, abrasive album about things falling apart.

As you’ve probably heard, The Center Won’t Hold was produced by St. Vincent, and if you picture in your head what that combination might sound like, I think you’ll be pretty close. Annie Clark’s fingerprints are all over this, but it’s still defiantly a Sleater-Kinney record. It still rocks, but in a new, more synth-y way that somehow doesn’t give up the intensity that this band is known for. The chorus of “Reach Out” floats on harmonies and lead guitar, leaning into its pop song qualities, and this is new for S-K, but they make it their own.

“Can I Go On” feels like the heart of this record, a lament for our current society with a shoutalong chorus that feels equal parts Sleater-Kinney and Clark. It’s about the state of the world and the ways it eats at you each day, making it harder to keep going. (“Maybe I’m not sure I want to go on…”) The album is full of difficult sentiments like this: “Never have I felt so goddamned lost and alone,” Corin Tucker wails on “The Future is Here,” and on album closer “Broken” she admits she’s “breaking in two, I’m broken inside.” And man, do I feel all of that.

It’s to the band’s credit that The Center Won’t Hold is the furthest thing from a downer. Its songs end up as singalongs more often than not, and the overriding sense this leaves me with is that we’re all feeling this way, and we need each other. Things fall apart, the center doesn’t hold, and we’re left to deal with it. But we’re not alone. If that seems like a lot to convey in 36 minutes, trust that Sleater-Kinney can do it. They’re a band with nothing more to prove, but they prove it anyway on this record, and it’s a treat.

Next week, some weirder ones. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I don’t know about your house, but in mine, every Marc Cohn album release is an event.

They don’t come around often. The last one, in fact, was nine years ago, and consisted of covers of songs released in 1970. Seven years after that he gifted us with a collection of lost songs and rarities that is simply amazing, but we haven’t heard a new Marc Cohn record since 2007, and the world has been a poorer place for it.

If you know Cohn, you probably know him for “Walking in Memphis,” his most enduring tune. I have often wondered how gratifying it must feel to have written a song that is instantly recognizable by millions of people within a couple notes. “Walking in Memphis” is one of those. It’s one of those songs that is more famous than its author, by a long, long way. It’s one of those songs that has passed so far into the cultural consciousness that some might say it belongs to all of us now. I’d dispute that – it’s still Marc Cohn’s song – but I get the sentiment.

If that is the only Cohn song you know, well, you are missing out. He’s such an accomplished and striking songwriter that the fact that we only have four records of his compositions is a shame. A couple years ago I pledged for an upcoming fifth album, but that never came to be. (My money was refunded when Cohn realized he wasn’t even close to ready to record something new.) He works slowly, and that’s fine, but it has left us with only a handful of songs to mark his time here.

But they’re great songs. “Silver Thunderbird.” “Dig Down Deep.” “Rest for the Weary.” “She’s Becoming Gold.” “Lost You in the Canyon.” “Dance Back from the Grave.” “The Things We’ve Handed Down.” The wedding favorite “True Companion.” Just listing the song titles had me humming along. Marc Cohn has written music that has enriched my life for nearly 30 years.

And he’s still doing it. Work to Do, Cohn’s recently released collaboration with the Blind Boys of Alabama, is easily one of my favorite albums of 2019. I’ve heard it probably 15 times since it came out last Friday, and I can’t stop listening to it. My joy was only amplified by the fact that it was a surprise to me – I heard about it only a week or two before it came out, so the fact of its existence and the beauty of the music it contains were part of the same burst of euphoria for me.

That means I also missed the fact that Cohn and the Blind Boys have been touring together. Had I heard about this, I would have moved heaven and earth to be there for one of the shows. Cohn and the Blind Boys is one of those pairings that clicked in my head as soon as I heard about it. I knew what Work to Do would sound like before I heard it, and I was pretty much right, much to my delight. The Blind Boys accentuate the gospel elements of Cohn’s music and provide a gorgeous, earthy texture to his soulful folk-pop. They’re a remarkable combination.

Work to Do begins with three studio tracks, including the first two new Marc Cohn originals in years. I like “Talk Back Mic,” about the voice of God, and I think Cohn and the Boys spun gold on the old spiritual “Walk in Jerusalem.” But it’s the title track that owns my heart. It’s at once a breakup song and a keepin’-on song, and there’s a resigned hopefulness to it, a mix of emotions that only a master storyteller and songwriter could balance out. It’s also a superb song melodically, and the Blind Boys give it that boost into transcendence. If this turns out to be the last gift we get from Marc Cohn, it’s a generous one.

The rest of the album is live, and it’s stunning. Here is “Ghost Train,” given just that hint of ethereal wonder. Here is “Baby King,” and if you know this song, you’re probably hearing the Blind Boys sing it in your head right now. Here is “Listening to Levon,” an underrated classic from his last full album. Best of all, here is a 10-minute “Silver Thunderbird” that digs down into the corners of the song and finds treasure hidden there.

And yes, here is “Walking in Memphis,” because it must be here. But this rendition is lovely – Cohn never plays this song as if he is sick of it, but you can tell the Blind Boys have renewed his interest in it. To my mind he’s written far better songs than this one (and many of them are featured here), but I can’t deny how much I enjoy hearing how much Cohn enjoys it here. The record ends with “One Safe Place,” a simple tune that has found a home in several movies and TV shows. Here it sounds like a soul-filling benediction, and it takes its rightful place next to his best songs.

Back in 2005, Cohn survived a gunshot wound to the head after an attempted carjacking in Denver. That he continues to walk the earth (in Memphis and otherwise) is one of the closest things to a miracle I can think of. I’m thankful he’s still with us, and still making music. Maybe, as his song says, he’s still got work to do. This new record certainly makes that case.

* * * * *

How about another pleasant surprise to round out the week?

I resisted Needtobreathe for a long time. I found a lot of their early work reminiscent of Kings of Leon and the like: average rock that failed to do much to interest me. But the more I listened, the more I liked what the brothers Rinehart were bringing to the table. Their last two records, Rivers in the Wasteland and the diverse Hard Love, made me a fan. Well, that and seeing them live a couple times, where they shine.

I’m not sure anything Needtobreathe have done could have quite prepared me for Wilder Woods, the debut solo project of singer Bear Rinehart. (His real name is William, but Bear is such a cool name that we’ll let him get away with it.) In some ways the more Motown-influenced material here is a logical step from the poppier parts of Hard Love. But in some ways, this is a new sound for Rinehart, and he makes the most of it.

If I’ve had issues with Needtobreathe in the past, Rinehart’s voice has never been one of them. It’s front and center here, leading the quiet acoustics of “Someday Soon” and the elastic soul of “Supply and Demand,” neither of which sound like Rinehart’s home band. “Supply and Demand,” in particular, feels like it’s right out of 1960s Detroit, so well has Rinehart replicated the Motown sound. One song later he’s offering an electronic beat and a pop hook on “Electric Woman.” Two songs after that he’s doing John Legend on “Mary, You’re Wrong.”

Most of Wilder Woods is concerned with romantic love, but those who have suspected that NTB’s spiritual side might have fallen away lately will have more to talk about with the closing track, “Religion.” It’s a fascinating, possibly metaphorical waltz built around these lines: “I was born in the shadows of preachers and saints, I was raised in a house of God, but the blood on my lips and the dirt on my face is the only religion I’ve got.”

It’s just one surprise on an album full of them. Bear Rinehart’s work here might be the most interesting he’s ever done, and I hope he can carry some of these new sounds back to his home base. Even if he doesn’t, though, Wilder Woods is an effective and successful drive down new avenues toward new destinations. It’s worth checking out even if you’ve never been a Needtobreathe fan.

OK, that’ll do it for this week. Next week, probably Frank Turner and one or two others. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

If asked to write a list of bands that have been formatively important to me over my lifetime, I would probably not immediately name Van Halen. But in thinking about it this week, I’ve realized they really do deserve a mention.

If you didn’t live through the early ‘80s, it’ll be impossible to explain why Van Halen was such a huge band. I’m not a guitar player, but even I could tell, listening to Eddie Van Halen play, that there was something new happening. My bet is that my first Eddie Van Halen guitar solo resided within Michael Jackson’s 1982 hit “Beat It,” a song that took the world by storm. I was all of eight years old when “Beat It” hit (and all of nine when Weird Al’s glorious parody, “Eat It,” cemented my love for it), so perhaps my critical faculties were not as developed as they became later. (Hush, all of you.) But I thought it was great.

I was ten when 1984 dropped, and Eddie started playing keyboards. I think I’d already gravitated toward the piano/keys as my instrument of choice, but if I hadn’t, “Jump” certainly would have made that an easier decision. “Jump” is one of the greatest stupid songs ever written, marshalling an iconic synth part in service of a universal truth: you might as well jump. Go ahead and jump. I think I was a few years older when I finally heard the whole record, but I cannot separate “Jump” from my memories of being a ten-year-old already in love with music.

I remember hearing “The Best of Both Worlds” on the radio when I was 12. I vividly remember the videos for the singles off of OU812, a title I probably didn’t get at the time, and I think that was my first new Van Halen record. I started making my own money at 15 and soon had the band’s entire catalog on cassette. And from there I stuck with them, long after most people gave up on them. I never minded Van Hagar, though the David Lee Roth years are, of course, the better ones. I even enjoyed Van Halen III, the one with Gary Cherone. I was 24 when that one came out, so I no longer had the excuse of youth.

For most of my life Van Halen has been one of those bands that won’t let me go. My sister used “Love Walks In” as her entrance song at her wedding, for instance. And now I find myself thinking about them again and revisiting parts of their oeuvre for the first time in a while, thanks to Greg Kurstin and Inara George. Together the two of them are known as The Bird and the Bee, and they marry George’s lush voice with Kurstin’s electronic production to create something of an updated lounge-pop sound.

With this sound fully intact, The Bird and the Bee has just released a full-album tribute to Van Halen. And it’s one of my favorite records of 2019.

In some ways, we could have seen this coming. The first Bird and the Bee song I heard was their single “Diamond Dave,” an ode to none other than David Lee Roth himself. It came out in 2009, shortly after Roth rejoined Van Halen for what turned out to be a brief time, and includes lyrics like this: “When you left the band I couldn’t understand it, but I’ve forgiven you now that you’ve recommitted.” Charming isn’t even the word for this song. It’s a delight, and much of what Kurstin and George have released since is similarly delightful.

In other ways, though, this new album is a complete shock. It’s the second volume of their cheekily titled Interpreting the Masters series (the first was dedicated to Hall and Oates), and it recasts nine early Van Halen tunes in electro-pop guises, performed entirely without guitars. If you ever wondered what “Panama” would sound like as a blue-eyed soul tune with funk-slap bass – and who hasn’t? – well, it’s just fantastic. The whole record is.

I certainly have some favorites here, like “Eruption” (yes) played on piano, and “Jamie’s Cryin’” re-arranged for synthesizers, but retaining that perfect tom fill. “Hot for Teacher” is here in all its glory, Kurstin’s nimble piano sitting in for Van Halen’s guitars (and dig that amazing jazz piano solo) and Beck, of all people, imitating Roth’s banter. (Beck is the one element of the record that doesn’t work as well as it should, honestly.) “Jump” uses George’s voice to augment the famous synth line, while “Unchained” barrels ahead convincingly, taking its place as the fine, fine pop song it is.

The best thing here, though, is “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love,” which in its original form sports one of Eddie’s rawest and raunchiest guitar lines. That melody is here, but it’s played entirely on thick ‘80s synthesizers. It’s now perfect for night driving, George’s cooing voice somehow embodying the danger Roth brought to the original. It’s utterly fantastic, one of the best covers I’ve heard in years. It does set a tone the second half can’t quite match – the record peters out with a cover of a cover (the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me,” reinterpreted by Van Halen on their debut) and a new, loungier version of “Diamond Dave.”

But overall, Interpreting the Masters Volume 2 is one of the finest surprises of my year. I think what I like best about it is that it takes these testosterone-fueled whammy-bar “real rock” tunes completely out of their milieu, stripping away the guitars and putting a female voice front and center. And they still work, beautifully.

Nothing about this is a joke, either – this is a loving tribute to early Van Halen, with so many nuances that only fans of this music would know to include. Speaking as one of those fans, if this had been a halfway effort, it would have been easy to tell. But Kurstin and George truly know this material and obviously love it. If you do too, I can’t recommend this highly enough. I have no idea who The Bird and the Bee will choose as the subject of the third volume in this series, but I can’t wait to find out.

That’s it for this week. Next week, Marc Cohn returns and Bear Rinehart steps out. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.