It turns out that the (temporary) cure for pre-election stress is to see Marillion play. Twice.

It’s been four years since Marillion played Chicago, and nearly two since I drove more than a thousand miles to Montreal to be part of my first Marillion weekend. That’s long enough to nearly forget not only how amazing the band is live, but how extraordinary the vibe at a Marillion show is. I have never, in my entire concert-going life, felt the kind of reciprocal love I feel at this band’s shows.

It’s that love that allows them to create a difficult masterpiece like their new album, Fuck Everyone and Run, and play two of the longest, angriest and most challenging pieces on stage to a warm reception. The first of the two Chicago shows ended with the best rendition of “Three Minute Boy” I’ve ever heard – the first half a comedy routine, the second half a reverent audience singalong – and the second ended with a full reading of “This Strange Engine,” possibly my favorite of their longer songs. Both nights were magical. Thank you to Jeff Elbel, my constant concert buddy, for making the first of those nights possible for me.

Anyway, I told you that story to tell you this one – Marillion’s opening act for the Chicago shows was John Wesley, a longtime friend of the band and their fans. I know Wesley mainly from two places: his similar opening stint for Marillion in 2004, and his time with Fish, Marillion’s former singer. But I was again impressed, as Wesley took the stage alone, electric guitar in hand and programmed drum and bass tracks at the ready, and proceeded to play like a one-man King’s X. His set was loud and riff-heavy, often in tricky time signatures. Much of it was taken from his new album, A Way You’ll Never Be, which in turn takes heavily from Steven Wilson’s work with Porcupine Tree, a band Wesley has also played with.

And as riff-monster guitar albums go, A Way You’ll Never Be is pretty great. Wesley plays with a power trio here, just bass and drums, and fills out the rest of the sound himself. The album is front-loaded with its longest songs, including the what-time-signature-is-this-beast-in title track and the slower, more ominous “To Outrun the Light.” The album gets gentler – but only a little – on tracks like “The Silence in Coffee,” and instrumental “Unsafe Space” gives Wesley further chances to show off his soloing prowess. The record does get wearying by the end, since there’s no variation in sound throughout – Wesley was terrific in a half-hour opening slot, but over an hour, I find myself wishing for more than he offers. But if you enjoy songs based around big riffs, give this a shot.

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I’ve had even less time lately to listen to music and form thoughts about it, so I’m going to burn through a few I should have mentioned by now. Just keep in mind that you’re reading thoughts from only a couple listens, and I reserve the right to change my mind as I get to know these records better.

I’m certainly looking forward to knowing Lady Gaga’s Joanne better than I do now. If you think of her primarily as a walking marketing effort, then her fourth album is a weird one – it’s stripped down, more rock oriented, less shocking and more concerned with strong songwriting. Gaga poses in profile on the front cover, wearing subtle makeup and a light pink hat. It’s a far cry from, for instance, appearing as a half-woman half-motorcycle monster, as she did on Born This Way. None of this record announces itself in the way that Gaga usually does. In a lot of ways, it’s the opposite – the antidote, if you will – to her last one, the overcooked ArtPop. Where that one felt like an army of producers propping up an image, this one feels like a singer getting some friends together and making some music.

And if you think of Gaga as a singer and a songwriter, Joanne is a sigh of relief, a balm, a rousing chorus of “At Last.” It’s much more organic, in the vein of a KT Tunstall album, with a bluesy bent. It lasts all of 39 minutes, a modest running time for Gaga. It’s named after a deceased aunt, and the lovely acoustic title track is dedicated to her. There are certainly moments of electronic music – the refrain of the groovy “John Wayne,” for instance – but they’re in service to these songs, not the reason for them. And the songs are stronger than they’ve been in some time, and they suit that belting, all-systems-go voice. Gaga proved her vocal bona fides on her surprisingly good duets album with Tony Bennett, and she makes great use of that instrument here.

Sure, there are Lady Gaga-style shocking moments, like the masturbation ode “Dancin’ in Circles” (which sounds quite a lot like one of her influences, Madonna), but most of the record is straightforward rock-pop. Her contributors here include double-take names like Josh Homme, Kevin Parker and Josh Tillman, and songs like “Million Reasons” sound like they were recorded live. I’m less convinced by the slower tunes – “Angel Down” has its heart in the right place, but gets a little sappy – but more than drawn in by off-center tunes like the country-leaning “Sinner’s Prayer.” I’m glad to see this album doing well, because I’d hate to trap such an interesting musical presence in the “shock me” box. If Gaga can do this – can just make an album of songs that she likes, and put them out on a disc – and succeed, she’ll be around for a while. And that’s a good thing.

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Speaking of career longevity, here’s a new album from Jonatha Brooke.

If you don’t know her name, I won’t be surprised. Dismayed, but not surprised. Brooke is a singer and songwriter from Massachusetts, and I fell in love with her work in 1997, when I heard her excellent second solo album, 10 Cent Wings. That album includes “Because I Told You So,” which is forever enshrined in my very short list of very favorite songs. Brooke’s career is a repeated story of writing fantastic songs that everyone who hears them would like, and then not getting famous off of them. She didn’t get famous as one-half of The Story in the early ‘90s, 10 Cent Wings didn’t make her famous in the late ‘90s, and her unbroken string of terrific albums since then has not done the trick either.

So I don’t have high hopes that her tenth album, Midnight Hallelujah, will do it either. But it’s really, really good. Brooke writes solid pop songs in the vein of Aimee Mann and Suzanne Vega, and her powerful voice sends those songs straight to the heart. Just listen to “Light Years,” on this new album. It’s a hell of a melody – it takes no breaks, spins out a simply glorious tune atop Brooke’s piano, delivering both the hope and sadness of the lyric. There are no frills, no bells, no whistles, just superb songwriting, as always. That’s Brooke’s calling card, and it’s all over Midnight Hallelujah.

The surprise this time is “Mean Looking Jesus,” written with Eric Bazilian of the Hooters. Over a dirty rock riff, Brooke takes aim at those who use Jesus to judge and condemn, and it’s the loudest and angriest I’ve ever heard her. The rest of the record is standard (meaning awesome) Jonatha Brooke, well-written and strong and pretty. It’s really quite wonderful, and I couldn’t be happier that she is still making music. If you don’t know who she is, try this album out. My bet is you’ll want to hear everything she’s done, and I’d highly recommend doing exactly that.

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It’s been 13 years since we lost Elliott Smith.

It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. Smith was perhaps the best songwriter of my generation, a shy and withdrawn genius who was slowly coaxed out of his shell, found the light too bright and killed himself. His story is tragic, and his songs – often gentle outpourings of depression and self-loathing – a fitting soundtrack. Smith left behind half a dozen albums of gorgeous, heartbreaking music, and it’s often difficult to listen to now, save for the fact that it is also beautiful.

It’s a testament to those songs that even now, 13 years after his death, people are still singing and playing them, and tribute albums like the just-released Say Yes are still being made. This latest, from American Laundromat Records, brings together luminaries like Tanya Donnelly, Amanda Palmer, J Mascis, Juliana Hatfield, Lou Barlow, Waxahatchee and Mark Kozelek, all fans, and lets them run with Smith’s tunes. As you might expect, the renditions are largely faithful, but just having the chance to revisit these songs is worth it.

My highlights list includes Donnelly’s opening “Between the Bars,” the quite excellent Julien Baker’s late-night lope through “Ballad of Big Nothing,” and Hatfield’s perfectly straight take on the amazing “Needle in the Hay.” Amanda Palmer makes “Pictures of Me” her own, while Jesu and Sun Kil Moon do their thing on “Condor Ave.” I was also impressed with several of the artists I’ve never heard, like Tomo Nakayama, who delivered a strong take on “Miss Misery,” and Adam Franklin, who dug deep to find the XO gem “Oh Well, Okay.” All in all, this is a fine tribute to a songwriter I miss a great deal, still. These songs are his legacy, and these reverential versions do them justice.

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That’ll do for this week. Next week, Tom Chaplin makes his solo bow and Hope Sandoval returns. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I love comics.

I always have. My grandfather used to take me to the Franklin News store in the center of my old hometown and pay for comics for me. Usually Spider-Man, since he was my favorite – even at 10 years old, I identified with the shy and nerdy Peter Parker. But I really started to love the sequential arts when I found Casablanca Comics in Windham, Maine, just down the street from the college I attended in the early ‘90s. It was there that I first discovered that comics could be (and often were) more than men and women in capes punching each other for ridiculous stakes. There were comics for adults, comics that tackled weighty themes and came complete with healthy helpings of sex and swearing.

I was 18, and this was exactly what I was looking for. I’d read Sandman, and I’d dabbled in Jamie Delano’s Hellblazer, but that was about it. It was that latter one – Hellblazer, the story of magical con man John Constantine – that really led me into the next 20-plus years of reading grown-up comics. But I truly came aboard that title in 1993, when Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon started their epic run. I’ve been collecting and reading comics for most of my life, and I have rarely seen a writer and artist sync up so completely as Ennis and Dillon did on that run of issues.

And when it was over, they launched their joint magnum opus, Preacher. A rowdy, irreverent and gleefully nauseating romp through America on a quest to find God, Preacher remains one of my favorite books from the ‘90s. The characters were richly drawn by both Ennis and Dillon, and the art, while certainly lingering on some of the more disgusting aspects of the tale, remained sympathetic to characters like Arseface, making him a tragic figure instead of an object of ridicule. With Preacher, Ennis and Dillon painted on a wide canvas, taking on difficult questions with a shoot-from-the-hip attitude. It’s a hell of a book.

We lost Steve Dillon this week. He was only 54 years old, and died of complications from a ruptured appendix. The bloody 2016 took a little time off, but now it appears to be back to work, and this one hurts. Dillon’s art was instantly recognizable, and I still associate it with my college years, when I began digging into an art form I cherish to this day. I owe him a lot. Rest in peace, Steve.

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It’s fitting that we begin this week’s column with a eulogy, since death moves between every note and line of the only album I have on tap, Leonard Cohen’s astonishing You Want It Darker.

Cohen is 82 years old now, and every time he makes a record, it may be his last. He’s always been obsessed with death, but You Want It Darker is the first one in which I feel that knowledge, that preparation for his own mortality, everywhere. It almost didn’t happen – Cohen began recording last year with Patrick Leonard, but a severe back injury halted the sessions. Cohen’s son Adam stepped in, and ended up producing six of the nine tracks on the album. Cohen expresses his gratitude in the liner notes, and I can’t help but add my own. You Want It Darker is the most captivating album of Cohen’s late career, a stunning meditation on faith from a man with nothing to lose.

For his entire career, Cohen has grappled with God, with his religious upbringing and his doubts and questions and longings as an adult. This album is a frank testament from an old man about to come face to face with whatever awaits him, and here he wrestles with faith like never before. The music is typically stripped down – pianos, organs, thumping bass, minimal drums, and Cohen’s low growl of a voice. He speaks this album more than sings it, his aging vocal cords thick and rumbling, the microphone close enough to pick up every whisper, every nuance. When he sings, as he does on the hymn “If I Didn’t Have Your Love,” his performance is compelling in its messiness, its imperfection, its raw honesty.

And in the same way, Cohen’s words this time are as brave and open as his voice. The album’s title is fitting – many of these are dark songs with powerful images, Cohen cutting right to the bone. In “Leaving the Table,” he sings of lost love, but equally of his own impending death: “I don’t need a reason for what I became, I’ve got these excuses, they’re tired and lame, I don’t need a pardon, there’s no one left to blame, I’m leaving the table, I’m out of the game.” “Traveling Light” performs the same trick, over a subtle electronic blues and his trademark choral backing vocals. “I’m traveling light, it’s au revoir, my once so bright, my fallen star,” he sings. “I’m running late, they’ll close the bar, I used to play one mean guitar.”

And with death closing in, Cohen wages an internal battle with the stories of God and the afterlife, and whether he believes them. “Treaty” is about loss of faith, and is as direct as Cohen ever is: “I seen you change the water into wine, I seen you change it back to water too, I sit at your table every night, I try but I just don’t get high with you.” The chorus finds him admitting “I’m angry and I’m tired all the time,” and wishing for a more concrete agreement with God. “I’m so sorry for the ghost I made you be,” he sings. “Only one of us was real, and that was me.”

“It Seemed the Better Way” finds Cohen looking askance at the gospel, turning it over in his mind and trying to balance its message with the dusty reality of his life. “It seemed the better way when I first heard him speak, but now it’s much too late to turn the other cheek,” he says, admitting that “it sounded like the truth, but it’s not the truth today.” The song is chilling, giving us a crystal clear glance at Cohen’s inner monologue. And at its end, he keeps his true feelings inside: “I better hold my tongue, I better take my place, lift this glass of blood, try to say the grace.” It’s the most broken and painful beauty, and it catches me up short.

Nothing here is quite as powerful, though, as the album’s first and last songs. The title track opens things with a bleak pulse, and with Cohen contrasting himself with God: “If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game, if you are the healer, I’m broken and lame, if thine is the glory, mine must be the shame, you want it darker, we kill the flame.” It’s stunning stuff, particularly the repeated Hebrew phrase “hineni hineni” (“here I am”), followed by Cohen’s “I’m ready, my lord.” This is the closest he has come to saying “I am about to die,” and the remainder of the song (and in truth, the album) dissects the questions he hopes to have answered when he does.

Closing track “Steer Your Way” is the most powerful thing here, particularly if it is Cohen’s final statement. He is speaking to himself throughout, steering past crumbling monuments to things he once believed, headed toward a last destination. “Steer your way through the ruins of the altar and the mall,” he sings, equating religion and commercialism. (He goes deeper in that direction in the chorus: “As he died to make men holy, let us die to make things cheap,” an amazing single-line excoriation of our economic wars.) “Steer your way through the pain that is far more real than you, that has smashed the cosmic model, that has blinded every view,” he sings, as strings sway beneath him. “And please don’t make me go there, though there be a God or not,” he pleads, knowing that the end is near. “Year by year, month by month, day by day, thought by thought.”

It’s utterly compelling. If you have followed Cohen through his journey, the cumulative impact of You Want It Darker is astonishing. He knows this may be his last turn around the sun, and like David Bowie at the beginning of this year, he has crafted what may be his final statement, a dusky and clear-eyed powerhouse of a record. Listening to this album is like eavesdropping on Cohen’s darkest thoughts, his most existential inner battles. If this is his last, he is leaving us with a masterpiece, thoughtful and painful and strangely beautiful. Cohen’s contemporary Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in literature a few weeks ago, and at the time I suggested Cohen’s name as a possible future candidate. You Want It Darker is not only a stunning possible capper to a long and poetic career, but further proof that if anyone deserves such an honor, it is Leonard Cohen.

May this gorgeous, difficult goodbye not be the final statement it appears. My life, and the world, can always use more Leonard Cohen.

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Well, I thoroughly failed to give that album a brief review, didn’t I? Next week, an epilogue to the October Project with a bunch of (I promise) short takes on new records. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for literature this week, which of course has led to a lot of conversations about songwriting within my circle.

I’ve read passionate arguments both for and against treating song lyrics as literature, and I think if you consider them poetry, a good case could be made. Dylan, it seems to me, is perfectly poised to make that case, since his lyrics usually feel divorced from his music in a way that, say, Elvis Costello’s don’t. Dylan songs often consist of repetitive chords designed as delivery vehicles for the words, and it’s those words for which he will be remembered.

Of course, this led to several conversations about favorite songwriters. I’m not sure why, but I’m always surprised when Glen Phillips doesn’t show up on anyone’s lists except mine. Maybe it’s that he fronts a band called Toad the Wet Sprocket, who had a couple hits in the ‘90s? I don’t know why Phillips isn’t taken seriously as a writer, because he fits all the criteria one might imagine for such a list – he’s literate, insightful, simple without being simplistic, pointed when needed, open-hearted and honest.

I’ve been a fan of his writing since Toad’s seminal album Fear, and I’ve kept up with his splendid solo career. I was overjoyed at the Toad reunion, but I’m just as happy to have a new solo album from Phillips. It’s called Swallowed by the New, and it’s mostly as pleasant as the autumn twilight, while offering a fresh and optimistic look at life’s smaller moments. Many of these songs fall neatly into the folk tradition, maintaining the distinction between Phillips’ softer solo material and Toad’s more amped-up sound, but there are a few exploratory detours as well – the dark “Unwritten” rides a pitter-patter groove and a storm-cloud atmosphere, while “Held Up” gallops off in a bluesier direction.

For the most part, though, Swallowed by the New offers delicate meditations that act as healing balms. Songs like “Amnesty” and “Grief and Praise” and the lovely “There’s Always More” are like gentle encouragements to keep going, keep looking up, and Phillips’ oblique spirituality adds a wider scope to these little songs. There’s nothing on Swallowed by the New that will change your mind about Glen Phillips, but these 11 songs are fine additions to what was already a fine catalog.

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Eleven years ago, Mike Doughty issued his best solo album, Haughty Melodic. It was a clean break from the trip-hop soundscapes of his band, Soul Coughing, and from his acoustic songwriter roots – it was a beautifully produced pop album bursting with colorful melodies and memorable moments, thanks in no small part to his creative partner in that endeavor, Dan Wilson.

Since then, fans of his unique beat-poet voice have been waiting for him to equal it. He’s come closer in the last couple years than he ever has – 2015’s Stellar Motel is strong and diverse, and its follow-up, the just-released The Heart Watches While the Brain Burns, keeps the streak going. Neither of these albums quite measure up to Haughty Melodic, but I think this is about the best we can expect to get from Mike Doughty, and it ain’t bad.

The Heart Watches is a more consistent songwriter album than Motel, meaning it sticks to a particular style for most of its running time. These are groove-driven pop songs, performed on guitar and synth by Doughty (with some drumming help by Pete Wilhoit), danceable beats with acoustic strumming and keyboard flourishes. Doughty takes that limited yet instantly recognizable voice for a spin down familiar avenues, firing off nonsense words because the consonants sound good colliding together. His writing is strong here, as it was on Motel – “There Is a Way Out” is one of his hookiest pop tunes in years, and single “I Can’t Believe I Found You in This Town” is a double-time delight.

This is going to sound like a half-hearted compliment, but it’s not meant as such: The Heart Watches also doesn’t overstay its welcome. Where Motel jumped all over the map, this album centers on what Mike Doughty does best, gives us just over half an hour of it, and then gets gone. The result is the first Doughty album that has left me wanting more in a very long time.

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Speaking of leaving me wanting more for the first time in a while, here’s Conor Oberst.

Omaha, Nebraska’s most famous son, Oberst began his career as the sole member of Bright Eyes, his folksy songwriter project. The first Bright Eyes songs were recorded with little more than Oberst’s guitar and voice, but over time – like you do – he expanded his reach. Bright Eyes ventured into mammoth concept albums and electronic noise, and Oberst’s solo career has seen him paint on vast canvases with the Mystic Valley Band. The last Bright Eyes album, 2011’s The People’s Key, could barely breathe under the layers of sound.

All of which makes Ruminations, his new solo record, so refreshing. Written in the months following a bout of laryngitis that led to the cancellation of a tour, the songs on Ruminations sport just piano, guitar and harmonica, and were played and sung live by Oberst on his own. He channels his hero Bob Dylan here, writing simple songs that exist for their lyrics and then leaving them alone, unadorned. Oberst keeps his voice in the low register, never slipping into his trademark emotional screams. Even so, there’s an honesty to this album that hasn’t been in evidence for quite a while, and that alone makes this worth hearing.

The songs aren’t anything special, but I have a fondness for material like this from Oberst. As ever, he keeps the chords easy and the lyrics difficult, name-checking Christopher Hitchens and Sylvia Plath in the same verse and admitting to spreading his anger “like Agent Orange.” Like the earliest Bright Eyes material, these songs sound like streams of consciousness, like they poured forth in a torrent, like the world’s most literate man is just making them up as they go. After years of over-thinking and over-working his material, Ruminations marks a fresh start for Conor Oberst – he could build up in any direction he chooses from here. I’m interested to see which way he goes.

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And now I am about to flush all my remaining credibility by giving a longer and more considered review to Geoff Tate than to Conor Oberst. Such is life.

Longtime readers know of my nearly 20-year love for Queensryche, which began with Operation: Mindcrime, the first concept album I ever heard at the tender age of 14. I followed them through their surging popularity in the early ‘90s and their fall from grace after that, despite thoughtful albums like Tribe and American Soldier. I suffered through the band’s acrimonious split with singer Tate, and through the weird period when there were two Queensryches, one led by Tate and the other featuring the other founding members and phenomenal new singer Todd La Torre.

And I cringed a little when Tate, who lost the rights to the name of the band, re-christened his project after Queensryche’s most famous album, Operation: Mindcrime. Tate’s Operation released the first part of a planned trilogy of albums last year, The Key, and it was… you know, fine. Where Queensryche with La Torre has embraced its metal roots, Operation: Mindcrime has taken up the progressive storytelling part of the band’s work, but The Key was largely forgettable groove-rock, Tate struggling to hold my attention for the full 48 minutes. I figured this was just the sad, slow petering out of a voice and a songwriting style I have loved since my teen years.

But hold on, because the second chapter of that trilogy, called Resurrection, is considerably stronger. In fact, I’m rather surprised at how much I like it. Part of the reason is that Tate has fully embraced his prog-rock tendencies here, leaving any sense that he’s supposed to be fronting a hard rock band behind. Some of Resurrection rocks, for sure, but most of it is concerned with texture and movement, particularly the five longer tracks at the end. Tate has also dropped all pretense that Operation: Mindcrime is a band – he’s the only consistent presence song to song, and he invites guests like Megadeth’s Dave Ellefson to contribute.

The concept drives the album, but not much happens, truthfully. In The Key, we met our main character, a web developer who has fallen into possession of something called (you guessed it) “the key,” which could revolutionize the internet. Or something. At the end of the first album, our hero is buried alive and left for dead, and in Resurrection, he, you know, is resurrected. At the end he’s ready to fight his enemies for possession of the key, which I am assuming will be the subject of the third album in the trilogy. So these songs are largely just motivational epics, with titles like “Taking on the World” and “Invincible,” detailing our hero’s physical and mental return.

But this album contains the best music of Tate’s solo career (for that’s what this is, a continuation of his solo career). The album is structured in an interesting way, beginning with four preludes (lasting a total of five minutes) that set the mood, moving into five catchier normal-length tunes and concluding with five epics that hover around seven minutes each. It eases you in and leads you carefully into the more challenging material, and takes that challenging material seriously – “A Smear Campaign” and “Into the Hands of the World,” the two longest songs, let their arrangements breathe and develop, Tate’s keyboards snaking in and out between guitars by mainstays Kelly Gray and Scott Moughton. (Those keyboards sound cheap and tinny more often than not, unfortunately, which is just a matter of taste.) These songs are downright weird, in a way I didn’t expect, and far more interesting (even when they stumble) than anything on The Key.

Even the more compact numbers, though, like “Miles Away” and “Healing My Wounds,” pack more of a punch this time. Resurrection is a strange album, a sign that Geoff Tate may have entered the deliriously fearless stage of his career, doing whatever he wants regardless of his audience. He plays saxophone here, pretty well, more than once. He flirts with self-parody by inviting also-ran singers Blaze Bayley and Tim “Ripper” Owens to sing on “Taking On the World.” Resurrection is a good title for this album, as its reckless oddness has reawakened my interest in Tate and his Operation: Mindcrime project. There was more here than I thought, and I’m now fascinated to see what he does next.

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Speaking of next, we’ll delve into new ones by Leonard Cohen, Jonatha Brooke and Lady Gaga next week. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Twenty-five years ago, a teenage boy walked from the grocery store where he made his money to the music store where he spent his money, looking for something new and different. On the recommendation of the clerk he respected, he bought an album he’d never heard of – the self-titled effort by a Memphis band called Human Radio. That this album had never caught on with the masses, the clerk said, was a crime. He was certain, given the boy’s love of quirky pop music, that he would agree.

Twenty-five years later, I’m still listening to that Human Radio album. Not only do I agree, still, that its unjust obscurity is a crime, but I rank it among my favorite records ever. “Hole in My Head” is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard about miscommunication. “Another Planet” is the catchiest environmentalism anthem I know. “My First Million,” “I Don’t Wanna Know,” “These Are the Days,” these are amazing songs, and the fact that outside of Memphis only a handful of people have ever heard them is baffling to me. If not for that kind clerk (whose name I completely forget), I would have missed them too, and my musical life would have been all the poorer for it.

It’s doubly depressing since the self-titled album is the only one they released. They recorded a second one, which you can find floating around the interwebs, but were dropped from their label and then broke up before they could release it. (It’s good, especially “While You Were Sleeping.”) Lead singer Ross Rice made a pair of decent solo records, neither of which I would have heard without previously knowing who he was, and outside of their hometown, Human Radio slipped even further into obscurity. I never expected a second Human Radio album. And I certainly never expected one 26 years after the first.

But here we are. Human Radio has reunited and given us Samsara, their first record in more than a quarter-century. And I’m struck, every time I listen to it, by how unlikely it is that this album exists, or that I heard about it at all. It was a confluence of events leading back to that one store clerk in 1991 that led me here, now, enjoying the hell out of a new Human Radio record. Life is very strange.

And Samsara is very good. While I can hear much of the old Human Radio in this album, much of it sounds new – older, more seasoned, less immediately clever. Rice’s lyrics were once full of jokes and irony, disguising serious points. Now they’re much more straightforward – you don’t get more on-the-nose than “We’ve Got to Live Here Together” or “She’s Gonna Be the One.” The original album had a plastic late-‘80s sheen to it, and while this new one sounds fantastic, it also feels more raw, more live. The new Human Radio sound is groove-driven, the band’s two Steves – drummer Ebe and bassist Arnold – locking in on many of these tracks. Their secret weapon remains violinist Peter Hyrka, who adds flourishes and also solos like he’s the lead guitarist.

While Samsara does sport a winning live energy, it’s also a well-made record. Songs segue one into another, orchestral parts add depth. Rice sounds fantastic, and when he hit that first harmonized high note on opener “Super Solar Satellite,” I was 16 again. I’ve always responded to his voice – there’s nothing unique about it, but I associate it with some of my favorite songs, so it will always work for me. The songs on Samsara don’t rise to that level, although I didn’t expect them to. But they’re strong and solid, more so than I thought they would be. And this album explores so many different styles that weren’t present on the first one. “The Water, The River, The Sea” is a beautiful ambient guitar ballad, “Transatlantic Lives” is Todd Rundgren soul, and “Walk in the Garden” (probably my favorite) is basically a great Joe Jackson song.

Samsara is also remarkably optimistic and joyous record, even when it’s sad. You can hear it in “The Big Drums” and the aforementioned “We’ve Got to Live Here Together” and the tremendous closer “We’re All Light” – these guys love playing music together, and are so damn happy to be given the chance to do it. Samsara is an album I never thought I would get to hear, and you can tell it’s an album these five guys never thought they’d have a chance to make. I’m so glad we were both wrong. You can learn more about Human Radio and pick up Samsara here.

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I’ve always liked Regina Spektor, but I’ve never loved her.

I came in with 2006’s Begin to Hope, and have bought everything since. I find her to be a fine songwriter, a lovely singer and a performer with just enough quirk to make me smile. And yet, for some reason, I’ve just never connected in a deep and emotional way with one of her records. Here, of course, is where you can rightly expect a well-placed “…until now,” because her seventh, Remember Us to Life, is breathtakingly good. I’ve heard it a dozen times now, and each time it has made me cry. It is sweet and sad and heartfelt and open and smaller in scale than she has been, and yet bigger than the world.

The two songs I had heard beforehand, opener “Bleeding Heart” and electro-stomper “Small Bill$,” while quite good, don’t set the tone for the album. Most of the rest is lyrical, lovely piano balladry, the kind that Spektor made her name with, but deeper somehow, more powerful. I’ll only mention a couple, but they’re stunning. “The Light” is gorgeous, a treatise on finding hope in darkness. “Tornadoland” is about being soft in a world of hard edges, and it hurts. “The Visit” spins a simple tale of old friends reconnecting and somehow manages to make it feel like the heavens opening. And how the remarkable “New Year,” a perfect portrait of loneliness and the struggle to remain encouraged, ended up as a bonus track I will never know. (The same goes for the fantastic “End of Thought.”)

Through it all, Spektor is in complete command of her songwriting voice. These are the best, most consistent fourteen songs she has given us, and she invested herself in them to a degree that I’ve never heard her do before. Remember Us to Life is a beautiful record, quietly assured, painting with nuance and ending up with a vivid masterpiece. I’ll be listening to this one for a long time, and maybe one day I’ll get through it without tearing up. Not today, though.

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It’s sad, but Green Day has become the Bon Jovi of pop-punk.

Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool are all in their mid-40s now, and while I would never suggest that they’re old (being that age myself), I think they’ve grown too old to innovate. They do what they do – three-chord punk with a dramatic flair – because that’s what they do, that’s what they’re known for. I have no idea what kind of music they really want to make, but they haven’t convinced me that any of it is on Revolution Radio, their just-released 12th album.

Not that this record is bad, per se. The trio took a four-year break after knocking themselves out to produce a trilogy of overcooked and half-baked albums in 2012, and that has done them good. Revolution Radio sounds like the product of a regrouping, and an attempt to return to the American Idiot sound that brought them their biggest hits. And in a lot of ways, that’s the problem with it. American Idiot worked because it took the band to new places, but this album feels stale before it even gets to track four. The rock opera impulses are here in opener “Somewhere Now,” which ties nicely into the three-part “Forever Now,” and the politically charged rock of the title track and “Bang Bang” feel like they’re right from Idiot.

The rest of the record follows suit, taking the band no new places. I like “Outlaws,” with its wider scope, and “Still Breathing” feels like a strong alt-rock single from the ‘90s. But songs like “Youngblood” and “Bouncing Off the Walls” just kind of feel like Green Day. The album even ends with an acoustic ditty, just like “Good Riddance,” called “Ordinary World.” If you think you know how it sounds, you’re exactly right. Revolution Radio gleams in the light – the production is full and rich, the guitars vibrant, the drums pummeling. But if you have their most popular stuff, you already have this.

And that’s why I say they’ve become Bon Jovi. Who looks forward to new Bon Jovi albums anymore? They’re all the same – cut-rate Springsteen and encouraging balladry, the same chords played the same way. That’s Green Day all over. I’m sure they’ll keep making new music, and I’m sure it will all sound like this, and I’m sure people will go see them play and will want to hear songs from American Idiot and Dookie. And I’m sure they’ll play them, happy to serve. Revolution Radio isn’t bad for what it is, but it’s just another Green Day album, existing just because, without much reason to.

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Speaking of the ‘90s, here’s a new album from Phish.

I know that’s not really fair, but I originally heard Phish in the ‘90s, when they first gained popularity outside of Vermont. They’re on their third life, having taken hiatuses in 2000 and in 2004, and I have no doubt they’ll have at least nine. The four musicians in Phish are among the best players you’ll find anywhere, and of course it’s the live show that remains the draw, but they keep on putting out albums. And thankfully, at least lately, they keep on being pretty good.

Big Boat is the band’s 13th, and the second in a row to be produced by Bob Ezrin. Its predecessor, Fuego, was quite good, and proved that Ezrin is a good fit for the band at this stage in their career. On record, Phish has been eschewing its tendency to jam – their songs sometimes hit 30 to 35 minutes in extended versions on stage – and turning in breezy rock and roll. That’s what you get for most of Big Boat, a relaxed piece of work that finds the foursome playing well off of each other, but rarely challenging each other either.

It certainly sounds like they had a great time making it, though. There are some remarkably straightforward numbers here, like “Tide Turns” and “Miss You,” both from the pen of guitarist/singer Trey Anastasio. Pianist Page McConnell sings lead vocals twice, and bassist Mike Gordon once, adding to the loose feel of the album. Tunes like “Breath and Burning” and “No Men in No Man’s Land” glide by on gentle grooves, and the whole thing feels like a pleasant stroll by a stream in late spring.

That is, until the final song, which makes up for a lot with me. “Petrichor” is a tightly composed 13-minute wonder. Initially given an orchestral treatment by Anastasio, here it showcases just how good these four musicians are, navigating this intricate piece while dancing around each other. It’s a worthy successor to “Time Turns Elastic,” and a nice reminder that while they seem content to play pretty simple tunes lately, Phish is truly a monster band, right up there with the best collective of players you can find. I enjoyed most of Big Boat (though admittedly not as much as the band seems to have), but I adore “Petrichor,” and for that alone I’d say the album is worth hearing.

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Next week, more reviews from the likes of Glen Phillips, Mike Doughty, Conor Oberst and more. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

October is not just one of my favorite U2 albums. It’s a month in which more music is released, on average, than any other. This year took a 30-day head start – we’ve just wrapped up one of the busiest Septembers I can recall, in which my current picks for the top two slots of the year took up a huge chunk of my listening and reviewing time.

The upshot of all this is that I have an enormous backlog of music waiting to be heard and dissected, and I’m expecting more, much more, each week of this month. I am planning to buy about a dozen new albums just this week, and I’m not counting the first Human Radio record in 25 years, which I have also ordered. It’s too much. I have too much already, and too much on the way, and I can’t possibly hear and deliver a considered review on each of them.

Hence, The October Project.

This is my attempt at burning through as many new albums as I can, in an abbreviated format. Not quite as abbreviated as my annual Fifty Second Week feature, but certainly trimmed down from my usual bloat. If you’re someone for whom the long-form discussion of an album is the reason you read this column, first, God bless you, because it’s my favorite thing too. But second, you may find this month frustrating, as it’s going to focus on quantity and pithiness. Heck, I might find it frustrating too, so we’ll see how well I do keeping things short.

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And already I’ve run into trouble, because the first thing I want to talk about deserves so much more space than I am about to give it.

Eighteen months ago, Michael and Lisa Gungor announced their intention to release a trilogy of new albums, one every half-year, under the banner One Wild Life. Their band Gungor began life as a worship-oriented art-pop collective, composing liturgies and church songs. Uncommonly beautiful liturgies and church songs, of course, but music designed for the devout. With 2013’s extraordinary I Am Mountain they broke out of that mold, traveling a more bizarre, thoughtful and, ultimately, rewarding path.

Most of One Wild Life continues that journey brilliantly. The first volume, Soul, is more airy pop, more traditionally Gungor in scope, but the second, Spirit, is a delightful explosion of ’80s-style keyboards with dissertations on faith and life. (I’m particularly fond of “Let Bad Religion Die,” which is just as pointed and critical of American Christianity as it sounds.) And the concluding installment, Body, is the best of the bunch, driving this ship home with style.

Body is an earthier piece of work, describing a human life from birth to death. It’s impossible to confine it to a single genre – it travels through as many styles as it needs to tell its story, from the gentle folk of “Birth” to the positively slamming dance-funk of “Alien Apes” to the swaying pop of “Walking With Our Eyes Closed” to the full-on gospel soul of “Free” (with a killer lead vocal performance by William Matthews) to the off-kilter epics “To Live in Love” and “Tree.” Body never falters. Not for the first time in this series, the Gungors’ creative vision takes them to some strange and initially off-putting places, and they follow that vision with perfect clarity.

Like I said, this album deserves a lot more space than I am giving it here. Sometime next month I would like to write a full review of the One Wild Life series, which has become a watershed project for Gungor. For now, let me say that the astonishing creativity they displayed on I Am Mountain is in full bloom here on Body, right through to “The End,” an eight-minute finale both to this album and the trilogy as a whole. It’s brilliant, and it’s one of the best things I’ve heard this year, and I’m looking forward to taking it apart in greater detail at a later date.

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I’m running into trouble again with my next contestant, not because I need more words to properly review it, but because I feel like I need another few weeks to keep listening to it.

I’ve never been a part of the cult of Bon Iver. Justin Vernon’s two previous albums (and one EP) under that name were, I thought, pretty good – the first a solid example of hipster-folk, the second a wildly incongruous chamber-rock album that left a lot of people scratching their heads. If you had any doubt that this state of confusion is how Vernon likes his listeners, one spin through the third Bon Iver album, 22, A Million, will remove it.

This record is, frankly, batshit, a collection of song fragments and noises that defiantly refuses to cohere. The song titles are numbers and symbols, the liner notes laughably pretentious, the lyrics diving from heart-on-sleeve insight to random nonsense (sometimes within the same stanza), and the whole thing feels more like a detached art project than a real statement. Plus, at the danger of making a terrible-food-small-portions joke, it’s remarkably brief – you’ll zip through the first three tracks before you even make your way back to your chair after pressing play.

And yet, pieces of this album are sticking with me, and I keep listening to it, almost compulsively. The songs are, no doubt, weak, and the production is intended to mask this, but there are some beautiful moments – the sad melody of “22 Over Soon,” the delicate “29 Stratford Apts” disrupted by distortion, the guitar part on “666,” the saxophones on “___45___.” These moments are not enough to make me love or even like this album yet, but they’re enough to keep me interested. I’ve seen many people call this the most compelling album of the year, and while I can’t agree, I can keep listening. And I will.

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In complete contrast, Rachael Yamagata has always been easy to love.

Though Yamagata has steadily delivered terrific new music since 2004, you don’t hear a lot about her. I think that’s a shame. She writes silky, dark songs and sings them with a rich, full, immediately recognizable voice. Fiona Apple got a lot more press for doing a similar thing, but Yamagata has staked out her own territory and has quietly built up a solid, impressive body of work.

Her new one, Tightrope Walker, doesn’t break with tradition – it’s another swell record in her style, another ten smoky songs that showcase her voice over slow, crawling grooves. “Nobody” could be the best Garbage single in a decade, easy. “EZ Target” builds its groove slowly, out of angles and odd-fitting shapes, but its chorus, complete with banjo flourishes, is a winner. “Let Me Be Your Girl” is a stunner, an old-school bluesy soul number, and she crushes it. “Break Apart is a high and lonesome lament that sounds as wide as the sky.

I’m not sure why more people don’t rave about Rachael Yamagata. She’s quietly and consistently made heartfelt and haunting music for 12 years, while working with (and standing proudly next to) some of the best in the business. And yet she still feels like a secret passed around by a select few. Tightrope Walker is one more reason to love her, one more reason that more people should be talking about her. It’s delightful.

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I know the saying about consistency and hobgoblins and all that. I’m all for shaking things up. But I’m not quite sure what Dawes was going for on their new album.

It’s called We’re All Gonna Die, and if that sounds like a particularly un-Dawes title, well, the incongruities don’t stop there. Much of this record sounds like the breezy California band’s attempt to be OK Go, with harsher edges and synthesizers on nearly every track. Opener “One Of Us” sets this tone, with its blatty, brassy synth bass line and Taylor Goldsmith’s normally sweet vocals distorted and processed. This is a song that contains nothing I like about Dawes, and it demands to be judged on its own merits.

And on those merits, the album is merely OK. I like “Roll With the Punches,” with its pulsing organ bass lines, and the shuffling “Picture of a Man” has its moments. “For No Good Reason” is probably the album’s best song, with its George Harrison guitar lines and its memorable chorus. But for the most part, this album’s attempts at sonic reinvention don’t stick as well as the band hopes they will. It’s hard to tell from just this album whether they’re on a journey or they’ve ducked down a blind alley – we’ll need to see where they go next for that. But We’re All Gonna Die is a strange effort that trades in the band’s easy appeal for something that turns out to be less interesting.

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By now you’ve all seen Stranger Things, yeah?

Netflix’s show of the summer was a fun mix of The Goonies and ‘80s Stephen King, with some fascinating theoretical physics thrown in. (Trust me, I work for a Department of Energy lab, and there was a lot of talk about the theoretical physics of the show.) To me, though, it wouldn’t have been what it was without the dark, synth-y music, and for that you can thank Austin band S U R V I V E. (Yes, that’s how they spell it, spaces and all.)

The band’s second album, the cryptically titled RR7349, is like getting a whole second soundtrack to Stranger Things. It’s all chilly synthesizers and old-school electronic drums, arranged into nine vast, wordless soundscapes. These nine tracks all blend together into a whole, but if I had to pick highlights, opener “A.H.B.” and the arcade-sounding “Dirt” would rank up there. The darkly dramatic “Wardenclyffe” does it for me too.

I know S U R V I V E is but one example of an entire genre of ‘80s-inspired instrumental outfits, and it’s an area I have not explored to any depth. But on the strength of RR7349, I might sample a few of this band’s contemporaries. This is nostalgic and yet sounds boldly relevant, a blast from the past that fits alongside some of the most interesting music being made today.

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That wasn’t so bad, was it? Another four or five albums next week, including a glorious new one by Regina Spektor. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Marillion’s new album is called Fuck Everyone and Run.

When I paid for this album a year ago, I had no idea it would be called Fuck Everyone and Run, and neither did the band. And when they told us, nine months into an incredibly successful preorder campaign, that the new album would be called Fuck Everyone and Run, I will admit that I didn’t know what to think. This is a band I have loved for 20 years and what the holy hell were they doing calling their new album Fuck Everyone and Run?

But being a Marillion fan is a state of perpetual, reciprocal trust. It’s how they operate. They’re the band that invented crowdfunding, using donations to fund a U.S. tour in 1997 and then an album, Anoraknophobia, in 2000, nine years before Kickstarter launched. Crowdfunding is based on trust – we give the band our money at least a year in advance, offering them the freedom to make whatever music they want, and we trust them to deliver something amazing. Likewise, the band trusts us with their art, taking enormous creative risks secure in the belief that we will give their work the time and patience it deserves.

This has been their modus operandi for 16 years now, and I can’t imagine there’s a band alive who wouldn’t be envious of the position Marillion is in. They haven’t been on a record label since the ‘90s. They are beloved around the world by a good-sized, incredibly devoted fanbase – 17,000 of us pre-ordered Fuck Everyone and Run, without hearing a note of it. They haven’t had to compromise or dilute their music in any way. They write whatever they want, play whatever they want, make exactly the records they want to make on their own timetable, and still get to tour the world and perform for thousands of people who know all the words to every song. Tell me that isn’t living the dream.

And man, do they treat us fans well. My preorder of FEAR bought me a gorgeous 100-plus-page hardcover book full of illustrations and photos and a making-of DVD that won’t be available anywhere else. Plus all 17,000 of us got our names listed in the book. Their concerts are magical experiences – I get to go to one in a couple weeks here in Chicago – and every two years, they host a series of conventions for fans, wherein they play their hearts out for three nights in a row for us. I attended one in Montreal last year, and it was one of the best concert-going experiences of my life. The fans feel like family, like we’re whispering this secret between us, so happy to find people that this band affects in the same way.

I’ve grown used to the fact that most people I know will not hear what I hear in Marillion, will not get the spine-tingling life-changing joy I get out of them. The fact that there are thousands upon thousands of us around the world, though – enough to fund a risky and powerful album like FEAR – is consolation. I would still be overjoyed if the people I love most were to accompany me on this journey, but hey, I get to support a band making music I love deeply, and immerse myself in new music every couple of years. Feeling bad about that, even a little, seems like whining.

Considering how much I love FEAR, whining is the furthest thing from my mind. Like all the best Marillion albums, this one is taking its time with me. It’s one of their most dense – it’s anchored by three long pieces that each stretch to more than a quarter of an hour – and easily their angriest and most political. Singer Steve Hogarth has said that this album captures his sense of foreboding – there’s a storm coming, he says, and it speaks the language of fear. The sweeping epics on this record tackle the love of money at the root of all evil, and the lyrics touch on Syrian refugees, wars wrapped up in religion, media manipulation and the shame of living in a country you don’t respect anymore. It even elliptically (and coincidentally – the song was written last year) references the Brexit vote that divided the UK into leavers and remainers. When Hogarth sings “fuck everyone and run” in “The New Kings,” it’s with an air of sadness – this is the attitude he feels from the moneyed “new kings” of the world, “sailing our seas of diamonds and gold.”

There’s no doubt that FEAR is meant to be a sequence, an album that draws strength from the mood it sets and the imagery it conjures and calls back to. Gold figures heavily, and not just on the cover – the opening multi-part suite is called “El Dorado” and sets up the first world as the city of gold, its streets only for some. It’s framed around that oncoming storm, beginning with bird sounds and tender acoustic guitar and lyrics about walled gardens in England, before the clouds roll in and burst: “The thunder approaches… tearing up the sky like paper, white-welding through the dark steel of clouds and the release of the sudden rain…”

From there, “El Dorado” grows ever more foreboding as it spins its thesis: money turns us into terrible people. The third section is called “Demolished Lives,” and in it, Hogarth turns his gaze to those struggling to get into the golden city: “I see myself in them, the people at the borders, waiting to exist again, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, denied our so-called golden streets, running from demolished lives into walls…” The gold stops us, he says. The gold always did. By the time the fourth section, “FEAR,” descends, the storm is in full gale. The band hits upon a repetitive figure and just simmers with it, building it to a boil slowly over four minutes while Hogarth lays it on the line: “And the madmen say they hear voices, God tells them what to do, the wars are all about money, they always were…”

I can’t stress this enough: Hogarth is absolutely amazing in this section, and across this album. He has long been one of my favorite singers, able to hold down a song with just a whisper or ride it full-throated into the atmosphere, and on FEAR he conveys great vulnerability and anger and frustration and, at times, hope. It’s a bravura performance, and when he’s quiet and fragile, as he is at the end of “El Dorado,” he breaks my heart like few singers I know. “We are the grandchildren of apes, not angels,” he sings, but even at the end of this crushing, darkening powerhouse, he’s hopeful. It’s stunning. Marillion is no stranger to opening albums with difficult epics, but “El Dorado” might be their most magnificent.

The single, “Living in FEAR,” is the antidote – it’s the most joyous, buoyant song here, and has the closest thing to a hook-filled chorus. This song is about leaving the keys in our unlocked doors as a show of strength, as a way of saying we’re not afraid, and though the words can be clunky (“We’re not green, we’re just pleasant,” which is a William Blake reference, but not one that rolls off the tongue), the sentiment is welcome. But it comes early – “Living in FEAR” feels like a resolution, like it should close the record, but it leads into three further long pieces full of sadness, anger and pain. The sequence is clearly well thought out, so this is meant to be a moment of light before plunging back into the darkness. And we’re meant to think of it as a nice thought blotted out by reality.

That reality gets a galloping start with “The Leavers,” for my money one of the finest pieces of the band’s career. Essentially the best “life on the road” song ever, “The Leavers” dives deep into the psychology of the nomadic lifestyle. “We sleep as we’re driven, we arrive before dawn, we wait in grey truck stops for the night to release us…” (This first section, with its pulsing keyboards and thunderous drums, is unlike anything the band has done.) Hogarth spares no one in this song – his family and friends, the remainers, are unable to “persuade us and tame us and train us and save us and keep us at home,” and he knows whenever he leaves he will be letting them down. But he can’t help himself – he belongs nowhere, arriving everywhere and leaving soon after. There’s a palpable sadness to this song, emphasized by Mark Kelly’s spare pianos, and though it ends in celebration – the final section, “One Tonight,” describes a concert – you know the joy is fleeting. “There are scars in our eyes from a thousand goodbyes…”

The piano forms the foundation of “White Paper” as well, a song which reminds me of the Blue Nile. The melodies are subtle and only reveal themselves with time, and like the album itself, it builds so imperceptibly that you barely notice before it’s at full strength. “White Paper” is about fear of losing someone, but also of losing inspiration and relevance. “I used to be center stage, time I should act my age, and watch from the shadowed wings all these beautiful things,” Hogarth sings, the full weight of his 57 years in his voice. This song and “The Leavers” are more intimate, more personal, and seem to suggest that the societal problems of the bookending longer pieces can be traced back to individual fears, individual insecurities. Here’s what I’m afraid of, he seems to be saying, and here’s where fear leads us to.

And where it leads us is “The New Kings,” the darkest and angriest song on the record (and in Marillion’s catalog). Sung largely from the point of view of the people who own the world, “The New Kings” trades in familiar language: “we’re too big to fall, too big to fail,” “greed is good,” “on your knees, peasant, kiss this ring.” But it’s all delivered with such frustration and resignation that it works. The band enlists a string quartet for the first time to add to the sadness of the early sections, and when the band is on fire here, Hogarth is phenomenal. Guitarist Steve Rothery finally gets let out of the box here – he’s been present on the entire album, but subdued, only delivering a few of those patented soaring solos. Here he’s everywhere, playing fiery leads on the first section and interlocking with bassist Pete Trewavas and drummer Ian Mosley on the intricate second part.

But it’s the final movement, titled “Why is Nothing Ever True,” on which Marillion erupts. Rothery plays with abandon for the first time, the storm in full force, as Hogarth lays this down: “Remember a time when you thought you belonged to something more than you, a country that cared for you, a national anthem you could sing without feeling used or ashamed, you poor sods have only yourselves to blame, on your knees, you’re living for the new kings…” It’s the sharpest, most pointed three minutes they have ever given us, the ultimate expression of “fuck everyone and run,” and even the miniature coda of “The Leavers” that ends the album can’t dull its impact. In fact, it sharpens it – the final words are about leaving everyone behind, fucking everyone and running. “We are the leavers, I’ll tell you a secret, it’s better to leave us alone…”

It’s a dark conclusion to a dark album, the waves of anguish leaving the hope of “Living in FEAR” a distant memory. But that spark is still there, waiting to be heard again, and I think it speaks the truth of this album’s call to action. Melt our guns, leave our doors unlocked, don’t be afraid. There is much to fear – money makes us worse, the people who have the money rule the world with impunity, people leave you and you leave them, and we all grow old and lose everything in the end. But facing all that with an open heart is worth it. A storm is coming, a storm is already here. I know I’m dreading November, and the years after that, and what this election season has taught us about the character of our country. But we can either cower from the rain, or run outside to meet it. It’s entirely up to us.

That’s a lot of insight to pack into 68 minutes, but it’s all there. I’ve barely mentioned the music, which is superb as always – Marillion’s work here feels like Talk Talk and Steven Wilson and Pink Floyd in places, but it always feels like Marillion. It’s intricate in ways that don’t immediately jump out, and on first listen it may seem like it all glides by without getting anywhere. This is a pretty common reaction to any first listen of Marillion – their music is patient, and it takes root over time. I’ve listened more than a dozen times now, and it’s come to life. It’s vibrant, focused, constantly moving, messy, raw, beautifully produced, full and rich. It’s Marillion. It stands up there with the best albums they have made. And it’s still surprising me with new delights, even now.

So yes, Marillion took my money and made an album called Fuck Everyone and Run. And I can’t thank them enough. The band has been around since 1978, and this is their 18th album, so at this point every one of these could be the last one. If this turns out to be it, I’ll be more than satisfied. Fuck Everyone and Run is one of the best albums they’ve made, in a career full of phenomenal albums. I’m proud to have supported it, proud to have been a small part of this band’s story for the past decade-plus, and grateful. So very grateful. And I’ll gladly keep on sending my money a year in advance and trusting Marillion to just be Marillion. There’s no other band like them.

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I don’t know how it is where you are, but here in Illinois fall has landed with a thud. We went from 80-degree days to 60-degree days and colder with no warning at all. The end of the year is approaching, and here’s further proof: it’s time for the third quarter report. Here is what my top 10 list would look like if I were forced to publish it right now:

10. Sarah Jarosz, Undercurrent.
9. Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool.
8. Gungor, One Wild Life: Body.
7. De La Soul, And the Anonymous Nobody.
6. Beyonce, Lemonade.
5. Lauren Mann, Dearestly.
4. Paul Simon, Stranger to Stranger.
3. Esperanza Spalding, Emily’s D+Evolution.
2. Marillion, Fuck Everyone and Run.
1. The Dear Hunter, Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional.

It’s not often that I hear my number one and number two records within a couple weeks of each other, but I can’t imagine this list without those two at its apex now. I think the quality of this year crept up on me. Looking at this list, I’d already stack it against any other year, and we have three months to go.

Next week, the finale of Gungor’s trilogy and a couple others. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Let me tell you a story.

It’s a story about a boy who lived a life full of regrettable mistakes. His mother, a former prostitute in the big city, fled her terrifying employer, setting fire to his establishment as she did. She retreated to a calm place by a lake and a river to raise her son, but her past caught up with her – the monster she used to work for sent men to kill her, and they did. The boy was left alone to make his way in the world, and eventually found himself in the same big city, at the same place his mother worked.

There he found a woman he thought he loved, but when he discovered that she too was a prostitute working for the same monstrous man, he reacted badly, eventually leaving the city and enlisting to fight in World War I. While trying to survive the war, the boy quite randomly met his half-brother, who could have been his twin, and his father, who he learned had raped and abused his mother. His half-brother died in a firefight, and the boy, looking for an escape from the war, poisoned his father and fled, returning to his home country to take the place of his half-brother.

For a while, the boy lived his brother’s life, lying to his brother’s mother and his brother’s fiancée. But when the mother died, he drifted back to the city, discovering that the man who had his mother killed is in charge of more than he thought. This evil man was both a pimp and a priest, profiting from sin during the week and absolving it on Sunday, and using the knowledge of others he gained in both roles to blackmail people and stay in control. The boy resolved to defeat him, and planned to run for mayor of the city.

It was a tough election, and during the many months of campaigning, the boy lost sight of who he was, and what he was fighting for. He became so enamored of power and fame that his brother’s fiancée, still thinking him to be his brother, left him behind. He won the election, but it was a hollow victory, as it left him alone and friendless. And finally, the pimp and the priest tightened the noose, revealing that he knew the boy’s big secret – that he was pretending to be his half-brother – and would reveal it unless the boy did everything he said from now on.

Now the boy is hopeless and lost, looking for purpose. Though some small part of him still hopes one day to complete his revenge.

* * * * *

Be honest, you’d see that movie, right? How about if it were a movie for your ears?

The story above is the plot (up to Act IV) of the Acts series, a concept album in six parts by a band called The Dear Hunter. I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t heard of them – their last album, the astonishing Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise, sold 7,000 copies, and that was a career high. But those who know about them know that over the last 10 years, the Dear Hunter has been crafting a masterpiece, a story so rich in theme and symbol, so intricate and captivating that you could get lost in its waters. It’s possible to live in this story for weeks at a time, finding new callbacks and references, teasing out new character motivations, and above all, just reveling in the sweeping, glorious music.

And now that story is almost over. This summer, Dear Hunter mastermind Casey Crescenzo announced the release of Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional, suggesting it would be the final “rock” act in the story. So far, we have no idea what he means – Act VI could be an album of orchestral music, or a film, or a play, or virtually anything. What we do know is this: Act V wraps up this whole story in a way that feels like the end, like the capper on a five-and-a-half-hour concept album for the ages.

I’ve been thinking for days about how to review Act V without coming off like some drooling fanboy. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to. I’ve been living in Crescenzo’s world for a week now, obsessively listening and re-listening and dissecting both lyric and melody. There aren’t a lot of albums that command this much attention from me, that immerse me so completely. This one does. In fact, the Acts series as a whole is one of the most immersive musical experiences of my life. I listen to these records the way others play video games, spending hours at a time in isolation with them.

Why do I think what Crescenzo has done here is so amazing? Start with the fact that he’s told a strong, rich story over five albums (with a sixth to come). It would have been easy to lose sight of this story, or rush through it, or go over the top with it. (I’m looking at you, Coheed and Cambria.) Crescenzo did none of those. The five Acts show a consistency and commitment to a singular vision, a story that obviously means something to its author, told with all the skill he could muster.

Then, let’s talk about that skill. When he began the Acts, Crescenzo was a fairly typical emo-alt-rocker, coming out of a fairly typical emo-alt-rock band, The Receiving End of Sirens. You can hear these roots in the latter half of Act II, the first material he wrote for the Dear Hunter. But his ambition was far broader than that, and over these five albums, Crescenzo has grown into one of the most impressive songwriters and composers I know of, stepping up right next to the likes of Sufjan Stevens. It’s been a remarkable journey to watch, and Act V is his most adventurous and most accomplished effort.

Like Act IV, it’s impossible to reduce Act V to a genre or category. Again, Crescenzo has composed full orchestral arrangements for the whole of this album, and whether they are subtly augmenting or stirring things to new heights, they’re almost always present. Crescenzo recorded Acts IV and V together, so the feel of these records is consistent, but the tone is surprisingly different – where Act IV was kaleidoscopic, particularly during its final third, Act V is darker and sparser. But like Act IV, it takes your hand right at the beginning and carries you through its 73-minute running time as if it were a single song.

And here is where I need to say “spoiler alert,” if you are planning to listen to Act V with fresh ears. I can’t review it thoroughly, can’t explore my reaction to it without discussing the twists and turns of the story. (I think this may be the first spoiler alert I have ever written in a music review.) Suffice it to say that the album is amazing, everything I had hoped it would be and more, and that you should buy it. If you don’t want to know more, stop reading here.

* * * * *

When we pick up the story at the start of Act V, it’s clear some time has passed. It’s not clear how much, but the boy is still the city’s mayor, still under the thrall of the pimp and the priest. “Regress” is the polar opposite of Act IV’s “Rebirth,” opening the album on a somber and difficult note. The first tracks on the Acts work like Greek choruses, telling us what is to come, and this time the news isn’t good. The chorus describes our hero as “slave to the seeds you’ve sown” and promises he will “find relief, the end comes swiftly for you.”

And then we’re off, as “The Moon/Awake” explodes in a flurry of electronic drums. This is the first time the Dear Hunter has gone industrial, and of course Crescenzo makes it work. The song finds our hero lost, living someone else’s life under someone else’s control. He’s crying out for an apparition, a ghost, and I think he’s calling for his long-lost mother. (“Could we return to the hymn of the lake?”) This will be important later, as will the epic section at the end, in which he addresses this apparition directly. “Cascade” follows, and it’s another perfect Dear Hunter pop song, further showing how far the boy has slipped into self-loathing: “But I’m keeping it in, hate the sinner never hate the sin.” (This song gets stuck in my head at all hours.)

Crescenzo pulled off many things on Act V that he had never tried before, and the next track, the six-minute “The Most Cursed of Hands/Who Am I,” is one of them. There’s a dusty cowboy feel to it that isn’t a million miles removed from Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive,” and amidst the banjos and strings, it erupts now and again into a killer rock riff. The song is a parable about the devil challenging a gambler on a hot streak to a game of cards, and it’s full of references to poker (“The devil went down to the river”) and to previous songs. (There’s a great little reference to “Where the Road Parts” from Act II.) The “Who Am I” section at the end finds the boy examining his place in the story – “And I should idly bide my time until a wager releases me?” – while the strings recall “Ouroboros,” the fateful final song of Act IV.

“The Revival” just explodes from there, its brassy horn section augmenting what is one of Crescenzo’s best uptempo songs. The lyrics take us on a guided tour of the Dime, the brothel where the boy’s mother worked, still the pimp and the priest’s seat of power: “The secret’s safe as long as you pay… you can leave it when you walk away and pretend you’ve washed your hands of it.” And just like last time our boy was here, he meets Ms. Leading, the prostitute with whom he fell in love in Act II.

“Melpomene” (named after the Greek muse of tragedy) is one of the most touching songs in Act V, a straightforward harp-driven ballad about reconciliation and regret. “Though my youth did mislead, I would retreat to you, right back to your arms with my spirit aglow,” the boy sings. Crescenzo has often spoken of his immaturity when dealing with Ms. Leading in Act II, and this song is his chance to put it right, portraying two people who have grown and changed reuniting as friends, and more.

This reunion becomes one of the catalysts for the final act, and in the next song, the second catalyst arrives. His name is Mr. Usher, here to “usher” in the end of the story, and his signature song is the biggest departure for the Dear Hunter yet. Crescenzo goes full Michael Buble here, crooning over a swing beat and a full orchestral arrangement. It’s kind of great. Crescenzo swears that Mr. Usher is a new character, but there’s plenty of evidence in the song that he’s actually the pimp and the priest, including references to Act I songs “His Hands Matched His Tongue” and (yes) “The Pimp and the Priest.”

Whoever he is, he and our main character sing a duet next – “The Haves Have Naught” sounds like it could come straight from Broadway, so perfectly has Crescenzo aped this style. Gavin Castleton plays Mr. Usher, rationalizing oppression of the weak as necessary and good, while the boy, newly emboldened, refuses this point of view. The turning point of the album comes in the final verse, in which the boy sees the pimp and priest for who he is: “Just look at that charlatan steeped in deceit, a threat to the young, the old and the meek, don’t you wonder what made him so vicious, so sick, so far out of balance, so cruel and so callous, so married to malice?” This song is absolutely remarkable, the most theatrical number in all five Acts, and it begins the finale.

But first, the most emotionally resonant song in Act V. “Light” is where we learn that the boy has a son, most likely with Ms. Leading, which means some time passed after “Melpomene.” And here is where he says goodbye to him, knowing he is going off to fight the man who first brought him to the city, and has plagued his life from the first. “Light” is a beautiful song, mostly just acoustic guitar, and serves as a letter from father to son: “And boy, someday I hope I do see the man that you will grow into, and when your heart’s in disarray, know that your father too has made mistakes…” The bridge section finds our hero admitting his own cruelty and foolishness, that he has “strayed too far away from the trees and the lake” of Act I. This song brings the whole of the Acts together, and the narrative force at this point is so great that I don’t think I’ve made it through this song without tearing up.

And then, bang, we’re into the final section, and it’s non-stop. Seriously, from here to the end, I was on the edge of my seat, and even now, after hearing it 20 or so times, I’m still carried away in its current. Everything Crescenzo has been building comes to a head here, and it’s amazing. “Gloria” is a powerhouse, a song of determination: “I’ve been falling fast into the rhythms without rhymes, I won’t be giving up again, I’ll be getting up again.” Our hero’s apparition speaks to him in the chorus, singing “e dolore magna gloria,” meaning “from pain comes glory.” He’s on his road to redemption. (This song contains a lead guitar solo from Crescenzo that is out of this world, too.)

Throughout the Acts, there has been a repeated phrase: “The flame is gone, the fire remains.” At various points this has been a symbol of the boy’s continued life after others’ deaths, particularly his two mothers. And so when you know this, and see two songs in a row near the end of Act V called “The Flame (Is Gone)” and “The Fire (Remains),” it’s one of those moments that makes your heart leap into your throat. These songs are fantastic, the first referencing “Ouroboros” as our hero decides what he has to do, the second referencing Act I as the boy does what his mother did: burn down the Dime. (This is foreshadowed in “The Inquiry of Ms. Terri” with the line “reprise, two times, the Dime, burn it to the ground.” Ten years ago!) Both of these songs are crawling epics, huge and forceful.

Naturally, our boy hopes that by burning down the source of evil in the city, he’ll be reborn, renewed, washed clean of his part in it. (“Far from the ash, I will be born again, where every debt is repaid, nothing left to keep me out of paradise as portraits of the past fade away…”) Of course, things are never that easy, and in the breathtaking “The March,” the pimp and priest plays the victim and turns the city against the boy. He tells his secret – that the mayor of the city has been pretending to be his half-brother, “a man he left to die.” When the song transforms into “The Old Haunt” from Act IV, it’s probably the most musically exciting moment of my year. (“You tried to take control, but you couldn’t with a stolen soul, so we’re coming after you tonight…”)

“The March” ends with a snippet from “The Most Cursed of Hands,” the gamble gone awry, and then slips into “Blood,” where it all comes to a head. The boy tries to explain to the angry crowd, but ends up damning himself: “I’m a killer, but I’ve been killing myself all along, had I done my best to protect innocence or did I lead the wolf to the fawn?” He is beaten and left for dead, and in the final song, “A Beginning,” he seems to actually die. “Just one moment more before I close the curtain, fate uncertain, spirit to the dark, endlessly apart…” He sees visions of his loved ones one last time, and calls out to the apparition that has followed him, using the same melody from the end of “The Moon/Awake.” “Is absolution far too much to ask? Can you forgive a truly troubled past?”

The ending takes my breath away. As the strings collapse, our boy offers one final thought: “So trust that with this end a new beginning’s waiting patiently.” Then, as he slips away, the familiar piano refrain of “The Lake South” and “The River North,” from Act I, plays us out. It’s remarkably emotional, especially if you’ve followed this story from the start. Hearing Act V for the first time was an experience like few others I’ve had as a music fan. It was like coming to the climax of a great novel or a great film. It was captivating the first time, and has remained captivating each time after. It’s an extraordinary triumph, the culmination of Crescenzo’s growth as a musician and storyteller, and the best record he has made. Which means it’s one of the best records anyone has made.

* * * * *

So why haven’t you heard about it?

I’m not sure. The Dear Hunter remains a cult act with a few thousand followers, despite making albums like this one. (I’m not even sure where Crescenzo gets the money to make albums like this one, frankly.) I hope his genius is recognized someday. For now, we have a sixth Act to come, in which we’ll find out what Crescenzo thinks about redemption, and whether he thinks the character he’s spent the last 10 years with deserves it. And after that? I think Casey Crescenzo could do anything, so I’m excited to see what he chooses to do. This is a guy who has, at age 32, written a symphony and is on the verge of completing the longest and most complex concept album ever. Creatively speaking, he could go anywhere.

And that’s what’s most exciting to me about finding someone like Crescenzo and watching him grow. I have no idea what he will do, and that’s thrilling. Whatever form Act VI takes, I have no doubt it will be a fantastic finish to this one-of-a-kind project, and I’m on board for literally anything Crescenzo does next. Act IV came very close to being my album of last year, and Act V is, right now, my album of this year. If I hear a record I like better than this one in the next few months, I’ll be astounded.

The flame is gone. The fire remains. Bring on the finale.

Next week, Marillion or Gungor or Dawes or any number of other things. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a new music week as big and beautiful as the one we’ve just been through.

I’m grateful for it because it means I’m spoiled for choice this week. That also means I can take more time with the one release I was most looking forward to: The Dear Hunter’s magnificent Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional. I’ve heard it twice, and I’m beyond impressed with it, both as a follow-up to the fantastic Act IV and as a culmination point in the Acts series. But it’s so big and so intricate that I need more time to digest it. I’ll have a lot to say about Act V next week.

But luckily I have a dozen or so albums to choose from to fill this week’s column. And I suppose I’ll start with the one every other critic but me is going to go nuts over. At least I’ll get it over with.

It’s been a long time since Wilco gave me anything I’ve loved. That used to be a regular occurrence, back when Jeff Tweedy and the late Jay Bennett sparked off of each other, driving the band to new heights again and again. The stretch from Being There to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (including the Mermaid Avenue collaborations) remains not only Wilco’s best, but some of the best rock music made in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. The intervening 15 years have not been kind to the band, though, as Tweedy took sole control and decided to stop trying. There were signs of life on 2009’s Wilco (The Album), and I liked much of 2011’s The Whole Love, but nothing Tweedy has done since then has managed to stick in my brain.

So it goes for Schmilco, Wilco’s Nilsson-referencing 10th album. Recorded at the same time as last year’s godawful Star Wars, this record contains the quieter songs, the yang to its predecessor’s noisy yin. But the songs are no better, alas, and stripped of distortion and energy, Schmilco is just boring. Tweedy sounds like he couldn’t be bothered to wake up for most of this album. He’s cranky on “Normal American Kids,” but it’s a sleepy kind of cranky, like he’s angry with his alarm clock for rousing him on a Monday morning. He can’t even muster up the energy to be sad on weepy numbers like “Cry All Day” and “Just Say Goodbye.” It’s a performance worth forgetting, which should be pretty easy, given the lack of anything else interesting happening.

Tweedy does stumble upon some nice turns of phrase here and there. “Happiness” opens with Tweedy croaking “My mother says I’m great and it always makes me sad, I don’t think she’s being nice, I really think she believes that” and revolves around the phrase “happiness depends on who you blame.” “We Aren’t the World” is about clinging to someone else in the face of a crumbling future: “We aren’t the world, we aren’t the children, but you’re my safety, girl.” You want to like songs with lines like these, but Tweedy makes it difficult. The wobbly bass line in “Someone to Lose” is literally the most interesting musical thing happening. (That song is the most energetic here, too, with its piercing lead guitar lines. Tweedy almost has an expression in his voice.)

If I’m going to remember Schmilco for anything, it’s for including a song I almost turned off halfway through. The last time Tweedy inspired such a violent reaction, he appended 12 minutes of headache-inducing noise to the end of “Less Than You Think.” I won’t say “Common Sense” is that annoying – it’s a quarter as long, for starters – but the song’s pointless dissonance and ugliness is hard to sit through. It’s certainly jarring in context with the rest of this snoozy little record. The bottom line here is, if you like the direction Tweedy has taken the band (and you were particularly taken with his solo album with his son Spencer, who plays on Schmilco), you’ll like this. If you remember how great Wilco used to be and you long for those days, you’ll find this remarkably depressing. And then you’ll forget it ever happened.

* * * * *

On to better things. Specifically, two bands who made disappointing second albums and have now returned with their third efforts. How did they do?

First up is Local Natives, a Los Angeles collective that I tried out on a whim six years ago. I quite liked their first album, Gorilla Manor, for its kinetic folksy charm. They made the fatal mistake of teaming up with Aaron Dessner of the National for their second, the dour Hummingbird, which trudged in place for most of its running time. This is a band that deserved a killer second album, and they simply didn’t deliver. So now here is their third, Sunlit Youth, which wisely excludes any and all members of the National. But is it good enough to make up for a sophomore stumble?

Kind of. Sunlit Youth is certainly lighter and sprightlier, but it trades the nimble folk of the band’s early years for a more solid, unmoving electronic foundation. This album contains lots of sustained synths, some electronic drum beats, and more of a modern indie-pop sheen. I like the feel of “Dark Days,” with its shaft-of-light keyboards and quick, clean guitar licks supporting high harmonies (and a guest turn by Nina Persson of the Cardigans), but the song is no great shakes. The band worked most closely here with Brian Joseph, known for engineering some great records over the past decade, and this album sounds nice and shiny. But it all feels a bit anonymous.

The back half of the album is better, and it does liven up as it goes along. I’m fond of Little Dragon’s turn in the producer’s chair on “Jellyfish,” and I like the segue into the more bluesy and straightforward “Coins.” The final third is more organic, with the sweet “Ellie Alice” hearkening back to the band’s roots. My favorite here is probably “Everything All at Once,” which brings together the band’s electronic and soulful sides with a lovely string arrangement. Overall, though, Sunlit Youth tends to fade into the background, just another anthemic pop record with electronic sprinkles, and that’s unfortunate. I like it more than their last effort, but I’m afraid it’s a more forgettable piece of work than I was hoping.

The same fate thankfully does not befall The Head and the Heart, a winsome six-piece from Seattle. They’ve always been uncomplicated and direct, and I adored their first album, particularly the sweeping “Rivers and Roads.” Second album Let’s Be Still should have been the same as the first, only more so. Sadly, though, what sounded light and full of heart on the debut came off as leaden on the second, like the band was so concerned with staying in touch with their roots that they forgot to evolve.

Which is why their third album, Signs of Light, is such a welcome event. Their choice of producer was worrying: Jay Joyce has worked with the likes of Carrie Underwood and the Zac Brown Band. But it turns out that while Joyce brought a more modern feel to the record, he also seems to have inspired some of their best, most alive material. Everything I loved about the debut is here. These are songs about simple moments and lovely sentiments, wrapped up in easy melodies and the harmonies of the band’s three singers. It’s just bigger, it steps out a little more, it twirls in the sunlight a little longer.

And it suits this band. These simple songs shine in this context, and the voice of Josiah Johnson has never sounded better. Opener “All We Ever Knew” would be the closing song on a lesser album – it’s an anthem about leaving a destructive cycle and finding something better, and it has a delightful open-road feel to it. You’ll be humming “City of Angels” for days, and their cover of Matt Hopper’s “False Alarm” sounds like a long-lost Fleetwood Mac tune. Even a simple little tune like “Dreamer” benefits from the new sense of dynamics, instruments popping in and out at just the right times, Charity Rose Thielen getting to belt out some of those high harmonies.

As Signs of Light unspooled, I found myself waiting for it to flag, and it never did. The final tracks, in fact, are my favorites – the soaring “I Don’t Mind,” the absolutely heart-rending “Your Mother’s Eyes” and the dark-into-dawn title track make for the best ending this band has given us. The whole record has a sun-dappled feel, which belies the turmoil happening behind the scenes. (They took time off before recording this, and since March Johnson has been recovering from his drug addiction while the other five tour.) Those Fleetwood Mac comparisons are starting to feel even more apt – this is a delightful, optimistic record drawn from pain, and it’s so sunny and so easy to listen to that it will make its way into your heart before you know it. I love every minute of it. You might say, as some have, that they’ve gone pop here, but what they’ve really done is moved forward into the spotlight while retaining everything that made them such a joy their first time out. Signs of Light is simply wonderful.

* * * * *

Of course, that’s not the whole story of September 9. In addition to the above, there were a bunch of new releases that might not deserve a full review, but deserve your time and attention.

Start with the new Teenage Fanclub, a quieter yet no less superb collection of tunes from this revered Scottish band, and then hear the debut from soulful rockers St. Paul and the Broken Bones. KT Tunstall embraced electro-pop on her new one, Kin, while Jack White collected his acoustic pieces together in one place on Acoustic Recordings 1998-2016. Nick Cave has a new one, Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau ran through a stunning jazz workout together, and Devin Townsend delivered the seventh of his Project albums, Transcendence. (I will probably review that one eventually.)

Add to that remasters of the Beatles’ Live at the Hollywood Bowl and two underrated Faith no More albums and you have a great, great week. I’ll be listening to this bounty for a while. And it’s not like it’s going to let up – the next few weeks will see the most intense concentration of new music this year, with expected highlights including Marillion’s new epic, the third part of Gungor’s One Wild Life trilogy, and new things from Bon Iver, Dawes, Opeth, the Pixies, Rachael Yamagata, Regina Spektor, Glen Phillips, Green Day, Tom Chaplin, and the list goes on and on. It’s a great time to be alive.

Next time, Act V. Get ready. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

In my day job, I work with scientists. And I have never met people more excited to be wrong.

These are people who spent decades puzzling out an elegant picture of what the universe is made of and how it works, and have spent every day since trying to break that picture. No answer is sacrosanct. If they poke holes in well-established theories, if they knock long-standing edifeces to the ground, then they call it a good day. These are people who know that being wrong is the first step toward being right, and there are usually a hundred wrong steps in between. They’re fine with that.

Me, I hate being wrong.

I hate it so much that I’ve been putting off writing this particular column for something like six months. That’s about 180 days, and my soundtrack for an inordinate number of those days has been Mutemath’s fourth album, Vitals. Upon its release last November, I panned Vitals, calling it “a wretched example of a band giving up on everything that made them special.” I called it “the furthest this band has fallen, the worst music they have made.” I even called it “one of the biggest disappointments of my year.” And at the time, I truly believed it.

I’m glad I ended my screed with the words “I’ll keep listening,” though, because that’s exactly what I did. I kept listening. And listening. After a while, it wasn’t out of a sense of duty, but because Vitals had grown into an album I wanted to hear, over and over. I shared it with people reluctantly, and several of them told me I was insane for not liking it. I kept listening, and about half a year ago, I came to the understanding that maybe, just perhaps, I had been wrong in my initial assessment. And I kept listening. The songs played in my head. A few months ago I realized that I liked every single song on the record, even the ones I found miserable on first listen.

And then, a couple days ago, I found myself playing the album as I got ready for work. I’m usually very good about stopping my morning music when it’s time to leave, but this time, I didn’t. I quite simply didn’t want Vitals to end. I kept it playing all the way through the final seconds of “Remain,” and sauntered into the office about 10 minutes late. That’s when I knew I had to write this. I’m rarely ruled by music. Rarely does music reshape my schedule and my life, demanding my attention. I enjoy Vitals so much that I made myself late for work so I didn’t have to turn it off.

So. I was wrong. I’ve spent some time trying to dissect my reaction to this album – why I was so put off by it at first, and why it so completely pushes my pleasure button now. I think I laid it out in that first review. I’ve been in love with Mutemath since their first album, and Vitals is the farthest from that sound their evolution has taken them. But here’s the secret I was missing: it really isn’t. It’s true that the core of the Vitals sound is synthesizers, replacing the warmth of guitars with a digital coldness, but the heart of this record hearkens back to that first one. So many of these songs now sound like direct descendants of the ones I still love from the debut, played in a new way.

One of the first Vitals tracks to click for me was “Safe if You Don’t Look Down,” which I dismissed initially as a synth-y home demo. I somehow missed the beautiful complexity of the melody, and the euphoric rush when the guitars enter about two-thirds of the way through. This song’s bridge is so perfectly Paul Meany: “Hide away your fears and take my arm, hold your balance, rest assured we’re right where we belong, with our chances, flying over seas of unknown ground, we won’t ever drown…” That part especially gets in my head and won’t leave, nudging against my brain. The melody is amazing, and it drives this already splendid song to new heights. And somehow I totally missed it.

Over time, that ended up being the case more often than I want to admit. “Stratosphere,” a song I always kind of liked, took hold, its swirling synths among the album’s best. The low-key “All I See” revealed itself to be a poem of uncommon beauty, probably my favorite Mutemath love song. I cannot keep from singing it. “Composed,” which I also waved away as a demo, now feels like the perfect breather, and the chord changes behind Meany’s “you give this old man hope” are unexpected and gorgeous. I sniffed at “Best of Intentions,” calling it a stab at Hall and Oates’ sound, as if that’s a bad thing. I think it’s the most fun moment of this record, and I look forward to it every time now. The instrumentals feel like important links in this chain now, not just wordless interludes, and the thick synth solo in the title track is one of my favorite things on the album.

I still have reservations about two songs, and they’re the obvious ones: “Joy Rides” and “Monument.” Opener “Joy Rides” remains my least favorite thing here, and I stand by the statement that it sounds like a Lexus commercial. But it’s fun, and it starts the album off on an upbeat note. “Monument” is still a little cheesy for me, but somehow in my first listens I missed the swell bridge section, Meany and his falsetto winning my heart before the heavenly synths come in. It’s still not the foot I would have chosen to put forward, but it has its charms.

Those are the only criticisms I have to offer, though, and by the time “Remain” fades out, they’re long forgotten. “Remain” is the one track that I unreservedly liked when I first heard it, and it’s only grown in stature for me. It’s this album’s “Stall Out,” a glorious cloud of atmosphere, only this one is unrelentingly hopeful. “Just keep trying, just keep fighting, just keep going, just keep surviving…” It’s among the band’s finest moments, on an album that I now realize is full of them.

So yeah. I was wrong. Not only is Vitals a terrific record, it’s eclipsed both of its predecessors in my eyes. I see now that Armistice was a decent album, but a timid one, treading water when it should have been bold. And Odd Soul, though it works much better for me than it did upon its release, is a mess, Meany and company trying on ill-fitting blues-rock outfits and attempting to create an album from jams. Vitals is the real deal, a reinvention that works beautifully. They’re a million miles from where they started, but they can still see where they’ve been, and that’s the best place to be.

In a couple weeks, Mutemath will release Changes, a remix album drawn from Vitals. I’ll buy it for sure, and I will be listening with nearly a year of built-up appreciation for its source. I suppose I could have waited to write this, and passed it off in a paragraph or two in the middle of a new review, but that wouldn’t have quite captured the depth of my about-face on this album. I absolutely love Vitals now, the way I love only a few albums from the past few years, and that change of heart deserved a full elaboration. So here it is.

Also, though, the next few weeks will be massive ones for new music, and I didn’t want this to get lost. Next week alone I am buying 15 new records, including efforts from Okkervil River, Local Natives, The Head and the Heart, Devin Townsend, Wilco, Teenage Fanclub, Wovenhand and the one I am anticipating above all the others, the Dear Hunter’s Act V. Still to come are Marillion, Bon Iver, the Pixies, Dawes, the list goes on. September is going to be amazing, and if I can keep up, I’ll be very surprised. Stay tuned to see how I do.

I’ll probably give Act V some time to settle in, so next week, a few of the new releases listed above. Be here. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I remember hearing De La Soul’s Buhloone Mindstate for the first time.

I was a year out of high school, living in a cramped dorm on a college campus in Maine, the furthest I’d ever lived from my suburban Boston home. This may come as a surprise to you, but I didn’t get the most comprehensive hip-hop education growing up in a Massachusetts suburb. I loved DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and felt a giddy excitement when I heard Straight Outta Compton and Eazy-Duz-It in high school. I followed N.W.A. as they splintered and couldn’t get enough of Ice Cube’s The Predator. But that was about it. Ask me about A Tribe Called Quest or Gang Starr and you’d get a blank look. (I found them both later, the latter through Guru’s awesome Jazzmatazz project.)

And De La Soul? I’d heard 3 Feet High and Rising and wasn’t sure what to make of it. I’d heard a little of De La Soul is Dead and wasn’t thrilled. (I love it now, calm down.) So I had no expectations when I hit play on their third album, the one with the weird title. And 48 minutes later, I was a fan for life. Part of it was the fantastic production, more intricate and slippery than any other rap record I’d heard. Part of it was the guest spot from Maceo Parker, whose contributions made “I Am I Be” my favorite De La Soul song instantly. But a big part of it was the clever and interesting ways Posdnous, Mase and Trugoy wove their rhymes about race and inequality and the dangers of not speaking your mind. This was a whole new world for me, hip-hop that took itself seriously and considered itself art.

As anyone more educated in this area could have told me, there’s plenty of artistic hip-hop. But I’m not sure I could have chosen a better entry point. De La Soul, for nearly 30 years, has been one of the most creative and interesting groups in hip-hop, never settling for the typical, always aiming smarter. I struggle with some of their mid-period work – the still-incomplete Art Official Intelligence trilogy isn’t all it could be – but when they’re on, as Pos and Trugoy (now Dave) were on 2012’s delightful First Serve, and as the full group was on their last proper album, 2004’s The Grind Date, they’re still impressive.

De La Soul’s disappearance in 2004 had as much to do with money as anything, and their absence has left a hole in hip-hop. You can draw a straight line from socially conscious rappers like Kendrick Lamar to the early days of message-conscious rap – he cites Tupac Shakur as his biggest influence, but the cut-and-paste jazz framework that makes up much of his brilliant To Pimp a Butterfly comes from De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, and anyone with a penchant for think-about-it wordplay certainly owes a debt to Pos, Mase and Dave. They’re legends, and like a lot of legends, they’ve seen their sales decline and their output shrink as the world moved on.

But if the members of De La Soul were worried that they had been forgotten, or that people would not recognize their impact, they shouldn’t have been. Like many long-running acts, they turned to Kickstarter last year to fund their new album, asking for $110,000. They got $600,874, which secured their future as independent artists. I love Kickstarter for so many reasons, and one of the big ones is its ability to revitalize the careers of artists who may not have any other way to make new music and get it out there. Like many well-known entities, De La took some heat for turning to crowdfunding – and I should point out that I did not contribute to this particular campaign – but if this is what it took to bring them roaring back, then it was absolutely worth it. And I hope they felt the love.

If not, I’m about to shower them with it. De La Soul’s just-released eighth album is called and the Anonymous Nobody, and it is without doubt their finest hour since their first immortal trilogy. It finally recaptures what I love about this group – their unpredictability, their willingness to go just about anywhere. For a record that is remarkably chill, the band that made it sounds revitalized, ready for anything.

Part of what sets this record apart is the way in which it was made. Sampling has always been a part of what De La does, and they came up before clearing those samples was a legal responsibility. Had they been forced to pay up front for 3 Feet High and Rising, it never would have come out, so dense are its multi-layered samples, and that’s part of the reason you won’t see early De La albums on streaming services. Knowing this time that sample clearances were out of their reach, financially speaking, the three De La Soulers did the only thing they could do: they hired musicians. Dozens of them, in fact. And then they recorded those musicians jamming on various moods for hundreds of hours.

And then they used those hundreds of hours of jamming as raw material, sampling it as they normally would and crafting the album out of those samples. Then they brought in a host of fascinating guests – it’s actually remarkable how much of this album is given over to the guest stars – from the expected (Jill Scott, Snoop Dogg, Usher) to the bizarre (Damon Albarn, Justin Hawkins, David Byrne, Little Dragon). The result is all over the place, and yet it hangs together like a suite. It’s one of the few recent hip-hop albums that feels like a journey, like you’ve been someplace when you finish listening to it.

Lyrically, this album is a strong argument for De La Soul’s legacy, and in large part serves as a thank you to the thousands of people who made it possible. Jill Scott’s opening monologue, called “Genesis” and delivered over sumptuous strings, begins with the line “I couldn’t be nobody but myself,” and posits that the time to love something the most is when “it’s reached its lowest and you don’t believe in it anymore and the world done kicked its tail enough that it lost itself.” The message couldn’t be clearer: the support of the fans has brought De La Soul back from the brink, and this album is a reward.

And man, it sounds like it. “Royalty Capes” comes swaggering in on a horn fanfare, sliding into a chill beat with some jazzy saxophone. Dave takes aim at modern rappers and their reliance on technology: “Androids read raps off of iPhones, I choke the blood out of felt tips.” “Us three be the omega like fish oil” is a purely Posdnous kind of line, a clever way of saying they’re the last of the old-school hip-hop royalty. Much of this song is the braggadocio you’d expect, but delivered in such an understated and witty way that it never comes off as arrogant. And the fact that it slips into “Pain,” an absolutely relentless groove with oodles of that De La Soul positivity and a great verse by Snoop Dogg, only makes it better.

For a while, it feels like De La has made a low-key beats-and-rhymes record. “Property of Spitkicker.com,” a reference to the Art Official Intelligence days, is a long, slow crawl with a verse by Roc Marciano, and “Memory of… (Us)” brings the strings back and enlists Estelle for an old-school hook that feels lifted from a soul song.

The first surprise comes with the brief “CBGB’s” and its seven-minute successor, “Lord Intended.” Both feature full rock bands, seemingly recorded live, and while “CBGB’s” is a minute-long powerhouse, “Lord Intended” is a full-on rock opera. For about half its seven-minute running time, it sounds like Rage Against the Machine on downers, Pos and Dave dropping strange references to Megadeth (a deep cut, in fact) and Black Sabbath. Then, in the second half, the pianos take over and Justin Hawkins of the Darkness takes center stage, and the song achieves a ridiculous sort of orbit, choirs of singers repeating the refrain “fuck everyone, burn everything.” I honestly have no idea what to make of it, but I love it.

From there the surprises keep on rolling. David Byrne turns the off-kilter “Snoopies” into a Talking Heads track: “In a hundred years from now, we will not recognize this place, the dollar store is filled with love, the parking lot is full of grace.” It’s one of the most successful mash-ups of style here. “Greyhounds” brings Usher in for a fairly typical story of a young girl chasing her fame in Los Angeles, but its glossy R&B is so unlike anything else here that it stands out. The bass-driven shimmy of “Trainwreck” segues into “Drawn,” which for most of its run time is a nearly ambient showcase for Little Dragon. When Pos slips in a verse near the end, it’s almost jarring, but it contains one of his best lines here: “Two words, I’m mortal, but the fans lift ‘em both together and remove the apostrophe.”

I’m a huge fan of “Here in After,” the stuttering indie-rock anthem featuring Damon Albarn, and it marries a tremendous verse about saying goodbye to loved ones with a web of electric guitars before Albarn drives it home. “We’re still here now,” the De La boys sing, and no message could be more joyous. The album ends with “Exodus,” which, as Dave sings, is “an outro that’s also an intro.” “We are the present, the past and still the future,” Pos says at the album’s conclusion. “Just common contributors hoping that what we create inspires you to selflessly challenge and contribute. Sincerely, anonymously, nobody.”

If this is it, if this is the capper on an outstanding body of work, then it couldn’t have ended any more perfectly. and the Anonymous Nobody is an album that celebrates the legacy of one of the finest hip-hop groups ever by (ahem) kickstarting them into the future. It is an album unlike any they have ever made, and unlike any hip-hop album you’re likely to hear, a sublimely confident stroll through unfamiliar sounds made wholly De La Soul. I hope this isn’t the end of their road. I hope it’s the start of a renaissance, and I’ll be first in line to help fund whatever they do next. and the Anonymous Nobody is a wonder, a reintroduction and a leap forward in one, a De La Soul album for the ages, and one of the best things I’ve heard this year.

Next week, a rare retraction. Be here. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.