I didn’t realize how much I would miss Keane until they were gone.

I can still remember just about everything about my first listen through Hopes and Fears, Keane’s 2004 debut album (and still their most commercially successful effort). I don’t recall a lot of first listens, especially to first records, but this one captivated me from first note to last. At the time Keane was a trio – singer Tom Chaplin, pianist Tim Rice-Oxley and drummer Richard Hughes – and their elegant, unfailingly melodic pop hit me exactly right.

As always with me, it was the songs I loved, from “Bend and Break” to “Everybody’s Changing” to “Sunshine” to the amazing “Bedshaped.” Sometimes when I listen to Hopes and Fears, I can still capture that initial rush of delight at finding something so beautifully realized, and at discovering a band that I knew I would follow for the rest of my days. And for the next eight years, I did just that – every two years or so, Keane would give me something new, and I would devour it. 2006’s Under the Iron Sea remains my favorite for its raw emotions and dark soundscapes, but Keane never made a record I didn’t like.

And then, after 2012’s more laid-back Strangeland, they went away. I should mention that I’d seen them live on every tour, thrilling at the fact that Chaplin can really sing like that on stage and admiring how seamlessly they integrated guitarist Jesse Quin for the Perfect Symmetry shows. Keane had been part of the fabric of my life for long enough that it truly hurt to see them fade away. It hurt even more to know that there had been more than the usual musical differences – Chaplin was working through some painful addictions that required an extended time away from music, as he detailed on his gorgeous solo album, The Wave.

I know I shouldn’t admit to loving this band quite as much as I do, but a world without Keane did take some getting used to for me. I get why people don’t like them – they’re straightforwardly and nakedly emotional, sometimes in ways that are even too much for me, and they’re the furthest thing from edgy. But to me Keane is a band constantly in search of the most beautiful thing they can create together, and part of that search is an unflinching honesty. Under the Iron Sea, for example, is made up of songs Rice-Oxley wrote about his frustrations and dark feelings toward Chaplin and his addictions, and Chaplin sings them. Any band that can survive something like that is, to me, worth championing, and worth much closer listens than most people offer them.

So of course I am over the moon that I no longer have to live in a world without Keane, and I’m absolutely in love with their fifth album, Cause and Effect. For a longtime fan like me, this album is revelatory – it is the most grown-up, world-weary record they have made, and you can feel the changes in their lives over the past seven years. It’s more than just the way Chaplin’s voice has matured, though there’s a new clear-eyed sense to his remarkably pure tone. It’s the way the band has become less adventurous, and at the same time more confident and complete. This is the most beautiful record these four guys could have made at this point in their lives, and while it’s more muted than their early work, it’s also exactly what it should be.

I’m not sure it was a choice, but Cause and Effect is almost entirely about Rice-Oxley’s 2012 divorce and its aftermath, and there’s a walk-through-the-world-alone sadness to the best material here. Some bands might have been self-conscious about leaving for seven years and returning with a sad record full of dark admissions and life lessons, but there’s no doubt every note and line here has been lived in. The wide-eyed innocence of “Somewhere Only We Know” is nowhere in evidence, but they’re the same band that wrote that song, and you can hear its echoes.

Basically, from the first electric piano notes of “You’re Not Home,” this record had me. The song is about the immediate aftermath of separation, when the person you loved is still all around you. “The click of the front door, your clothes left on the floor, bike wheels still turning where you left them on the back lawn…” Chaplin, of course, sings the hell out of this, and I can’t even tell you how grateful I am to have 11 new songs (13 with the bonus tracks) featuring his voice.

The band gets the radio singles out of the way early – both “Love Too Much” and “The Way I Feel” have that bright-music-sad-lyrics thing Keane does so well. “The Way I Feel” sounds like the Killers, as better critics than me have pointed out, and I like it, but I adore “Love Too Much.” “The purest dreams, they make us feel so high, when you’re falling down is when you feel most alive,” Chaplin sings over a lovely synth-and-piano foundation. This song is a latter-day-Keane classic, one of the best examples of their newfound clarity.

The rest of Cause and Effect slows down and aims for the heart. “Strange Room” hurts the way “Hamburg Song” hurt all those years ago. It digs deep into Rice-Oxley’s desolation: “For a moment I was dreaming we were just beginning, thought ‘finally I’ve come home, finally I’ve come home…’” It details his 2015 drunk driving arrest, and he includes a moment of lovely self-awareness as he talks to the officer: “I know what it looks like, a rich kid with a good life.” This one stays low-key, almost mantra-like, and though it builds, it never breaks open. It just breaks your heart.

“Stupid Things” is similar, full of details about Rice-Oxley’s relationship as he dissects it in his mind. “And now it’s little lies and alibis and the second phone, can’t make it home, I’m working late, you know I hate to miss the kids’ bedtime again…” This is the barest admission of his own wrongdoing, and it must be so strange for him to hear Chaplin sing it. “And I know that you know and we both just play along, just one more stupid thing that I have done…”

To me, the three-song stretch from “I’m Not Leaving” to “Chase the Night Away” is the heart of this record, and can stand with Keane’s best material. The lyrics are desperate and sad and lovely, from the dark chorus of the former (“Hold my hand, just like you used to do, I’m not leaving, throw it up, baby you’re all mixed up…”) to the brokenness of the latter, in which Rice-Oxley looks forward to a time when he can stop trying to rebuild.

But it’s “Thread” that has stayed with me the longest, and is perhaps the most honest of these songs. “All my life I won’t forget the pain in your eyes, I’m still scrubbing at the pain of this mess, wish you could understand the madness that grabbed at my throat and clung to my hands…” Of course the song itself is pretty and fragile, with a subtle string line, and Chaplin sings it like an angel. For some that will be its downfall – the songs on Cause and Effect are so lovely that they mask the anguish that pulses through them. To me that makes them sadder. Keane has moved me like few other bands, and on “Thread” they do it again. “Remember that I’m a good man, just not good enough…”

With all of this context, closer “I Need Your Love” seems more agonizing than romantic. Whether this is written to his ex-wife or to a new love, it comes across as yearning for fulfillment that Rice-Oxley will never find. “Let riches rain upon my head, these golden drugs, they’re not enough, I need your love,” Chaplin sings in his soaring voice, and if the pain of other songs here is disguised by their arrangements, this one is the epitome. It’s going to play like a Romeo and Juliet moment, a boy pleading with a girl to love him, and while it is that, it’s something more complex than that as well. It’s essentially the perfect closing song, cliched chorus and all.

In typical Keane fashion, the bonus songs are great too. “New Golden Age” should have been on the album proper. It sounds like picking yourself up and dusting yourself off, and it has one of the record’s best and most indelible choruses. “Difficult Year” isn’t quite as successful, but it as well makes for a fine conclusion: “It’s been a difficult year, I just wish we’d been together to face it…”

Yeah, this record hurts, but it also fills me with joy. I’m so glad to have this band back, especially if this is the type of honest, beautiful record their second act will bring us. In so many ways, Cause and Effect is exactly the right record for Keane to have made right now. It’s no one’s idea of a comeback record – it doesn’t storm the gates, announcing itself with bravado. Rather it patiently lets you into its darkest corners, offering up a difficult yet liberating look at brokenness. Keane’s best work has always done this, which is one reason it’s so good to hear from them again. I’m in love with Cause and Effect, and I think I will be for a long, long time.

That’s it for this week. This is my 950th column, and I’m glad I got to spend it writing about one of my favorite bands. Next week Brittany Howard’s solo debut, and a few other things. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s been a bad week for fans of the ‘80s.

On Friday we lost Eddie Money. His real name was Edward Mahoney, and he changed it early in his career to sarcastically reflect the fact that he was always broke. But his cash flow troubles didn’t last long. His first big hit, “Two Tickets to Paradise,” led off his debut album, released in 1977. I know, I know, it sounds like an ‘80s song, and it gets played on ‘80s radio. But trust me. 1977.

His biggest hit was a proper ‘80s anthem: “Take Me Home Tonight,” a duet with Ronnie Spector released in 1986. He had plenty of other hits, of course, but this is the one people will remember him for. Like a lot of ‘80s stars, he had some rough luck in the decades that followed, but always kept in the game, writing songs for TV and movies. He was set to release a new album, Brand New Day, this year, but he ultimately lost his battle with esophageal cancer at age 70.

And then on Sunday we said goodbye to Ric Ocasek. I was flying to San Francisco for a work trip when the news broke, and it was one of the first things I read when I got off the plane. It was like a punch in the gut. I have been an Ocasek fan for nearly as long as I can remember – I loved the Cars since first hearing “Just What I Needed” on the radio, probably when I was all of four or five. I am sure I had no idea who the Cars were at the time, but I definitely remember hearing that tune at a young age.

I vividly remember the Heartbeat City era, though, because everyone around my age does. “Magic.” “You Might Think.” “Hello Again.” The late Benjamin Orr’s wonderful “Drive.” This album and its quirky videos were absolutely everywhere in 1984, and even though I was only ten, I know I knew who the Cars were at that time. Door to Door, which contains the hit “You Are the Girl,” was the first Cars album I owned on cassette – I was 13 when it came out. I have, of course, subsequently bought every Cars album, most of them more than once.

Granted, I was at the right age to be bowled over by catchy synth-driven pop music. But I will never outgrow that particular love, either. The Cars created some of the most succinct, perfectly crafted pop of the ‘80s, and Ocasek continued that trend on his solo records, which I definitely did not hear until much later. By that time Ocasek was famous for another reason: he was a tremendous producer, working with some of the best in the business. (I love that he produced a Bad Brains record, and will always love him for working on the first Nada Surf album.)

And the production for which he is best known is, of course, Weezer’s Blue Album. In a lot of ways, Rivers Cuomo picked up the baton of short, sharp, goofy pop from Ocasek, and it’s the Cars-ness of Weezer’s most hummable work that I like best about it. Ocasek also produced the Green Album and the massive Everything Will Be Alright in the End, almost universally praised as a return to form for the band.

The last Cars album was Move Like This, in 2011, which featured Ocasek’s last great song, “Blue Tip.” Ocasek died at age 75 while recovering from surgery. He leaves behind an impressive legacy, songs that I’ll be humming for the rest of my life. May he rest in peace.

* * * * *

This is one of those weeks when I don’t have a lot else to report. I’ve been extremely busy and haven’t had time to dig back through my archive of purchased-but-unlistened-to music. I can’t, for instance, tell you how the new Hold Steady is, because I haven’t heard it yet. I also don’t have a lot to say about the ones I have heard. The new Josh Garrels, Chrysaline, is very pretty, for example, but its straightforward worship lyrics don’t give me a lot to hang on to. His voice remains amazing, his songs this time are kind of there, not leaving much of an impression with me.

I have heard the new Death Cab for Cutie EP once through, and I enjoyed it. Death Cab have been on an upswing lately, with last year’s Thank You for Today album mostly working for me, and the five songs on the Blue EP are all nice. It’s a consistent 22 minutes, and that’s probably the best you can ask for from Death Cab these days.

If there’s one new thing I’ve heard that I am digging more than anything else lately, it’s Circle of Dolls, the third album from KXM. They’re a supergroup in my mind, bringing together Dug Pinnick from King’s X, George Lynch from Lynch Mob (and before that, Dokken) and Ray Luzier from Korn. They play tight, loud, heavy rock, Pinnick singing his heart out and Lynch showing why he is still in demand as a guitarist.

“War of Words” kicks things off with a bang, but Circle of Dolls never flags. I’m a big fan of “Time Flies,” a better King’s X song than King’s X has given us in a long time. But seriously, we’re expecting the first new King’s X album in 11 or 12 years (depending on when it comes out) very soon, and my only hope for it is that it’s as good as KXM. If not, I may have to start thinking of this as Pinnick’s main band.

That’s about all I have for this week. Next week the floodgates open, though, with the return of Keane and the first solo album from Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard leading the way. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Bon Iver albums always take me a while.

Well, I say always, but really just since the delightful left turn this former folkie took with his second (and self-titled) effort. In 39 minutes, Justin Vernon dispensed with all that cabin-in-the-Wisconsin-woods mythology that had surrounded For Emma, Forever Ago and emerged as a fascinating artist with a command of the studio. I wasn’t sure what to make of Bon Iver at first, especially the ‘80s soundtrack ballad that closes it out, but now I absolutely love it.

Since then it’s become clear that Vernon has more interest in making Peter Gabriel-esque sonic journeys than he does in returning to anyone’s idea of what he should be or sound like. It takes him a while to make Bon Iver records – only two have surfaced since 2011 – so it makes sense that it should take a while to absorb them. He certainly doesn’t make it easy, adorning these songs with obscure, often nonsensical poetry and then saddling them with symbols or single letters for titles. He’s essentially removed some of the easiest ways in, which is why his work tends to need some time to settle before I truly feel it.

I say all that to warn you that I have only heard the fourth Bon Iver album, i,i, twice. It has not had time to work its magic. But so far, I like it quite a bit. In some ways it is less experimental than its predecessor, while still maintaining that patchwork sonic quality – there’s a new surprise every few seconds on this thing, and I always respond well to that. I’m not sure if any of these songs would work as well outside of this multicolored production, and I don’t remember any melody lines yet, but for now, Vernon’s layered vocals and inspired sense of shape and place carry me through.

This is the first time Vernon has used the same basic band two albums in a row, and that lends i,i some familiarity – quite a lot of this clearly spung from the same brains that made 22, A Million. The guest list is noteworthy: to name a few, Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak provides vocals, Rob Moose writes some lovely string arrangements, and Bruce Hornsby crops up on “U (Man Like),” returning the favor for Vernon’s appearance on Absolute Zero. Hornsby is another interesting touchstone here – some of these songs, and some of Vernon’s vocals, remind me of Bruce’s work, and both artists have proven to be remarkably restless.

Speaking of restless, just the first song, “iMi,” will leave your head spinning. There are 11 credited writers (for a thing that lasts 3:16), James Blake plays keyboards, there are tons of strings and horns, and Vernon’s voice is processed and chopped to bits. The quieter parts are quickly overwhelmed with sound, and when the Vernon Overdub Choir sings “how much longer,” it’s a pretty wonderful moment. Similarly great is the ending, in which the horns drown out everything in exultation. This is kind of folksy, kind of electronic, kind of jazzy, and kind of radio-pop, but it never stays any of those things for long.

The record as a whole follows suit. “Naeem” brings in a gospel influence, and a refrain (“I can hear, I can hear crying”) that stands as one of the record’s most memorable, over a musical bed that builds and builds magnificently. “Jelmore” is an off-kilter omnichord dream, its fragile underpinning threatening to fray and fall apart at any second. “Marion” is the closest Vernon has come to his For Emma sound since then, all acoustic guitars and harmonies, while “Salem” might be my favorite thing here: there’s a potentially cheesy ‘80s-ness to it that really works for me.

Again, these are all first impressions, and a record as dense and well-built as i,i will need some time to sink in. But I am thoroughly enjoying it. I’m on my third listen, and the extended saxophone solo on “Sh’Diah” is filling my soul right now. I’m looking forward to truly knowing this record, and discovering its pleasures over time.

Bat for Lashes, on the other hand, has always been immediate. From the first strains of “Daniel,” the first song of hers I heard, Natasha Khan had me in the palm of her hand. I love her sense of atmosphere and her affinity for Kate Bush-style ‘80s art-pop. I’ve never felt let down by any of her records, though Two Suns remains a favorite. She dove deep into her cinematic tendencies with 2016’s The Bride, a concept record about a woman whose husband dies on the way to their wedding. It was dark and yet superbly beautiful by the end.

Her new one, Lost Girls, is no less cinematic. The title is a direct reference to The Lost Boys, and the music began life as the score to a film about bikers in an ‘80s Los Angeles ravaged by vampires. As you might expect, this is Khan’s most ‘80s record, through and through. From the synth tones to the thin funk guitars to the bongos-in-a-box percussion, much of this sounds like it stepped right out of MTV in 1986.

It’s also awesome. It steps well beyond pastiche into full-blooded artistic statement – this is a love letter to the washed-out movie landscape of the me decade, particularly those made-for-teens fantasy movies that captivated my generation. Some of these songs conjured up images of those movies in my mind. Hell, there’s an instrumental called “Vampires” that sounds all but intended to bring forth the spirit of Corey Feldman. This is the kind of record that you know will include a blaring saxophone at one point, and there it is.

Khan has written some of her most immediate songs here to match the production. Something like “So Good” could be a more menacing Cyndi Lauper song, and could easily make its home on ‘80s radio. “The Hunger” is a powerhouse, its ringing organ setting the stage for a pulsing synth bass right out of Depeche Mode. (I’m not absolutely sure that it’s about vampires, but come on, it’s about vampires.) The optimistic “Safe Tonight” has traces of Yazoo in its DNA, but really it’s just a very good Bat for Lashes tune. And “Mountains” is a bit of a masterpiece, the emotional heart of this album and a song I will be singing for a long time.

It’s hard to predict what will inspire artists. I certainly didn’t expect much from Khan’s vampire movie album, but it turns out that Kiefer Sutherland with a mullet is exactly the kind of kickstart she needed. Lost Girls leaps to life, and it serves as a thesis statement on the artistic validity of an era and a genre that is often critically dismissed. If it wasn’t obvious from her previous work, Khan loves this music, and if she decides from here on to devote herself to this style, I won’t complain. I’ll just be huddled up, crying and listening to “Mountains” and watching out the window for the undead.

That’s it for this week. Not absolutely sure what I will write about next week. Let’s find out together. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I have been trying not to eulogize people very often in this column. My goal has been to reserve my memorial pieces for people not being remembered elsewhere, by others with far more eloquence. If I talk about a recent death here, it will be someone who was important to me, but not necessarily famous to most of the outside world.

That said, we lost Terrance Dicks this week, and I’m quite sad about it. I’m sure most of you know I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who my whole life. I started watching when I was six years old, catching the U.S. broadcasts of the Tom Baker years (and later the Peter Davison era) on WGBH, Boston’s public television station. Some of my earliest Who memories, then, are associated with Terrance Dicks. The giant robot in Baker’s debut story. The creepy (and yet hilarious) Frankenstein creature in The Brain of Morbius. The horrific cat-and-mouse game that makes up most of Horror of Fang Rock. Every single minute of The Five Doctors.

Dicks was one of the most important figures in Doctor Who history. He first made his mark co-writing Patrick Troughton’s swan song, the epic The War Games. He then script-edited the entire Jon Pertwee era, one of the most consistent in the show’s long run. He wrote some of my favorite Tom Baker-era scripts, and returned for the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors, which I love with all my heart. Dicks also novelized many of the classic series stories for Target Books and wrote several of his own Doctor Who novels. It’s no exaggeration to say that without his work, Who would have faded away decades ago.

Terrance Dicks died Friday after a short illness. He was 84 years old. Honestly, his importance to this little show I love cannot be overstated, and I just wanted to thank him for all the ways he enriched my life. So, thank you, Terrance.

* * * * *

I’ve been known to express some dismay at the state of our singles-driven download Soundcloud pop landscape, because I am old and curmudgeonly. But I have to say, the fact that the most hyped album of 2019 (and the one most likely to topple Taylor Swift from the number one spot this week) is an 86-minute prog-metal monster with songs stretching to 15 minutes, recorded by a band who debuted more than a decade before Facebook was even a thing, has planted a big grin on my grumpy, ancient face.

That band is Tool, of course, and as I’m sure you have heard by now, they’ve returned after 13 years in the wilderness with Fear Inoculum, what is astoundingly only their fifth album. It’s almost hard for me to believe that people have been this excited about Tool, but they have been. The ten-minute title track from this record, released a couple weeks in advance, has more than 12 million views right now on a platform (YouTube) that barely existed last time Tool released an album.

Fear Inoculum (and that is not a title that screams “advance hype”) is the first Tool album of the social media age, if you think about it. Twitter, which seems so ubiquitous now as to be ageless, was founded a mere two months before Tool’s last record, 10,000 Days, hit stores. There was no Instagram. Download and streaming culture had barely begun – iTunes was only four years old, and Spotify had just emerged, blinking, into the sun. But there’s no denying how instrumental social media has been in building up anticipation for this album.

And sure, Tool’s absence over the last dozen-plus years certainly helped in that regard too. The fact that even after leaving a Tool-shaped vacuum for all that time, no other act has risen up to fill the void is sort of amazing – they’re still the only band in the world like them. I think there are two main reasons for that: what Tool is able to play, and what they choose to play.

Honestly, I think they could play anything – all three musicians are aces at their instruments, and Maynard James Keenan has a stunning voice that sends chills up my spine. They’re so far ahead of so many of their contemporaries in sheer chops that it’s almost unfair. And what they choose to do with that talent is to write epic, punishing prog-metal that sticks with only a few notes and slowly unwinds, hopping time signatures like lily pads while building in intensity. I once described it as sounding like being crushed by a slow-motion steamroller, and while I stand by that, there’s a lot more math involved too.

There are six main songs on Fear Inoculum, and they all pull off the same trick. Each one is a minimum of 10 minutes long (with standout “7empest” stretching to 15), and they all begin atmospherically and then slowly, methodically build up into powerhouses. They find some interesting detours along the way – “Invincible” has this whole Blade Runner sequence with fat analog synthesizers, and it’s awesome – but essentially they do the same thing six times. But man, not only do they do this one thing better than anyone else, there really isn’t anyone else doing it at all.

What amazes me about Tool is that, for a band often called pretentious, they’re remarkably ego-free players. There are no spotlight-hogging moments, no hubristic wankery extending the song lengths. When they get together, the members of Tool are a single-minded machine, playing this complex music as one mind and letting it speak for itself. I could individually praise the three players, I guess – this is the best work ever from guitarist Adam Jones, and drummer Danny Carey is just jaw-droppingly good throughout. (He gets his own solo piece in “Chocolate Chip Trip” and it’s much more of a sculpture than a solo.) But that misses the point.

The point is that the only way Tool’s trick works – the only way they can build up these songs convincingly through sections in 11/8 and whole minutes of instrumental interplay – is by simulating a hive mind. You could replace one or more of them with players who are just as good, if you can find them, but you can’t replace the four-man telepathy that they seem to have developed. “Pneuma” is just an incredible piece of music, rising and falling over 12 minutes in who-knows-what time signature, and if all of them – even, and sometimes especially, Maynard – are not in perfect sync, it doesn’t work.

All of these songs work. “Descending” is perhaps the only one that doesn’t quite deserve its mammoth length, but it’s still pretty amazing. This record builds on the more atmospheric sections of 10,000 Days, and it’s the most patient music the band has made. There’s no “Stinkfist” or “Vicarious” to jump-start things – this time the band trusts its listeners to follow them as they wind their way through these compositions, making no concessions at all to a wider audience. This is Tool without any interference, answering to no one, making exactly the music they want to make, and they don’t seem to care if you like it.

I really like it, of course. As great as I think songs like “Invincible” and “Culling Voices” are, the highlight of Fear Inoculum for me is its finale, “7empest.” This is the only one on the album that sounds to me like Aenima-era Tool, loud and crashing and crazy. For much of its runtime it’s basically a jam session, but one that is just as clockwork-complex as anything else here. Jones, Carey and bassist Justin Chancellor achieve orbit here, circling around one another like feral dogs. Their telepathy has rarely been this unchained.

If I have a complaint about Fear Inoculum, it’s that while it’s clear the band worked hard on each song, they didn’t put as much work into cohering those songs into an album. Previous Tool records like Lateralus and 10,000 Days took their macro structure seriously, treating the album-length experience with the same care as the song-length one. Here it sounds to me like they finished six songs and four interludes and threw them together. The record doesn’t climax as much as it ends, and while it’s an engaging and invigorating listen, I don’t feel like I’ve been somewhere by the end of it.

That’s not even getting into the differences between the CD version and the download version. This is the first Tool album released into a world where more people will download it than buy the physical product, and the band certainly played to that – the 10-track download version includes three interludes excised from the 79-minute CD version, and they help unify the listening experience somewhat. They’re not essential, especially the closing “Mockingbeat,” but they do help give the impression that there’s an order to these songs and a method to their sequence.

I bought the CD version, of course, which means I paid $47 for the only physical package that was available. It’s incredible – it comes complete with a video screen loaded with a lengthy animation, with sound, and a charging cord in case the battery runs dry. The oversized booklet is fantastic, filled with illustrations and embossing effects, and the package is gorgeous to look at. It’s also gone – I don’t know how many the band made, but they sold out in a day or so, and I only snagged one by the grace of my wonderful record store. So the download edition is now the only one.

However you get this record, though – and you can certainly pay $160 or more for the physical edition if you want to – it’s worth getting. I’m astounded at the attention being paid to such a challenging, time-consuming work, but it’s gratifying to see. In some ways Fear Inoculum feels like six complete experiences sold together with some bonus material, but six complete Tool experiences are more than worth your money and time. There’s no other band like them, and I hope it won’t be another 13 years before we hear from them again.

Next week, Bat for Lashes and Bon Iver. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.