I think the day I stop knowing how to let go and be silly is the day I will have finally grown old.

I know a lot of music fans who just can’t enjoy something unless it’s deathly serious and out to Say Something. Hell, below you’ll find my second quarter report, and it’s chock full of important albums with resonant themes and a serious air. But I also love the silly. I love music that makes me grin like an idiot, and dance around the room. I love catchy, fun tunes with nothing to say.

I get a lot of flack for that. If you’re a Serious Critic, you’re not supposed to like effervescent, fun pop. You’re supposed to hoist your nose in the air and describe it with words like “lightweight” and “disposable.” I hesitate to point this out, but the Beatles, often considered the greatest pop band ever, specialized in lightweight and disposable. I love those records, and I love their modern antecedents, bands with nothing more on their minds than to write well-crafted, fun songs that bring a smile.

So when Adam Young sings, “Reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn’t want to live there,” I know how he feels. Young is Owl City, and that line comes within the first two minutes of his new album, All Things Bright and Beautiful. Young plays bubbly synth-pop, complete with liberal use of the auto-tune and – best of all, as far as I’m concerned – no hint whatsoever that he is in any way kidding. This is the candy-coated, fun, infectious music he makes, and he doesn’t care who hates it.

And man, do people hate it. Speaking just for my own corner of the world, I hope Young appreciates all the bullets I’ve taken for him. I love Owl City, pretty much unreservedly, and it’s been suggested more than once that I should turn in my critic’s card for such an offense. What can I say? Young’s music makes me smile. I am getting a little tired of defending it, but I’ll try again to explain what I like about it.

First, though, I want to deal with this Postal Service thing, because it really bothers me. The Postal Service, if you didn’t know, was a one-time collaboration between Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie) and electronic artist Jimmy Tamborello. They made one album, a cold and skeletal thing that married Gibbard’s high, even voice with whirring beats and minimal synth noises.

Adam Young also has a high, even voice, and he uses synthesizers. This has led critic after critic to cry foul and accuse Young of ripping Gibbard and Tamborello off. I think that’s lazy and simplistic. I also think Owl City makes music so silly, so uncool, that the Postal Service guys would never even dream of doing it. Give Up, the Postal Service’s one album, is a self-serious mope through a rainy cityscape. Owl City albums are delirious peppermint trolley rides through Candy Land.

Just listen to the second track on this new record, “Deer in the Headlights.” It’s my favorite, but that’s because it’s just so… goofy. The opening piano arpeggios give way to a zipline synth bass, a riff that would be rocking in a different context. And then Young, auto-tuned and fresh-faced, sings this: “Met a girl in the parking lot, and all I did was say hello, her pepper spray made it awful hard for me to walk her home…” The chorus is similarly charming and silly: “Didn’t you know love could shine this bright? Well, smile, because you’re the deer in the headlights…”

All the while, candy-coated synths provide a glimmering sheen. It’s fun! It’s singable, hummable, danceable fun. And that rarely lets up on All Things Bright and Beautiful. It does get weightier – an introductory benediction for the Space Shuttle Challenger astronauts gives way to “Galaxies,” a stomping shout-out to God – but not much. And the better tracks are the ones with nothing serious on their minds, like “The Yacht Club”: “I stood under the waterfall with a kiwi pineapple parasol, as Cinderella dropped the crystal ball, and made a concrete caravan of caterpillar concert hall.”

If those lyrics have you cringing right now, Owl City’s probably not for you. But this is joyous, dance-in-the-rain music that doesn’t care how uncool it is. Some of this album stumbles – the duet with Breanne Duren, “Honey and the Bee,” is a bit too twee for its own good, and “Hospital Flowers” doesn’t quite hang together.

But elsewhere, Young tries on new styles, new wrinkles in his sound, and they suit him well. He shouts his way through “Kamikaze,” leaving the auto-tune behind, and invites rapper Shawn Christopher to contribute a verse to “Alligator Skies.” He collaborates with Matthew Thiessen of Relient K on the closing song, “Plant Life,” and it’s an epic. It’s warm and romantic (“If I were to tug on your heart strings, would you strum on mine”) but also terribly silly (“I’d rather waltz than just walk through the forest, the trees keep the tempo and they sway in time…”).

The bottom line is this: Adam Young appears to live in a world where everything is bursting with color, and joy is in the air he breathes. This is a place I’d love to live as well. Owl City’s music takes me there, and makes me love life. I can’t say it any simpler than that. Young is really on to something here – his skill as an arranger keeps improving, and here he seems even more willing to let his sense of wonder overtake him.

And that’s the key. Owl City music is full of wonder, and that’s what makes comparisons with the Postal Service irrelevant. Adam Young is on a delightful trip all his own, and even though it’s defiantly, ridiculously uncool, I love it dearly.

* * * * *

I had high hopes for our other two silly pop bands this week, but both of them let me down, to varying degrees.

First up is The Feeling, for my money one of the best British pop bands of the past few years. They burst out of the gate in 2006 with Twelve Stops and Home, which contained four of the finest pop singles I’d heard in years. (The rest of the record was pretty damn good too.) Then, in 2008, they refined and exploded their sound on Join With Us, which played like five decades of British pop distilled into an hour of delight. I honestly hadn’t heard a pop album so detailed, so bursting with sound, since Jellyfish’s 1993 masterpiece Spilt Milk.

So of course, I’ve been breathlessly anticipating their third album. And now that it’s here, I’m not sure what I think. It’s called Together We Were Made, and in the edition I bought, it spans 25 songs (26 if you count the bonus track) over two discs. And it’s… not bad, but not as extraordinary as I was hoping. To use a McCartney analogy, if Join With Us was Band on the Run, then Together We Were Made is London Town. It’s perfectly acceptable, but doesn’t dazzle.

In fact, it just kind of… happens. Many of these songs rely on grooves instead of melodies, and the band makes more use of synthesizers and drum loops than in the past. Sonically, it’s all just mid-range mush. Nothing about it leaps out of the speakers and takes you dancing. On past Feeling albums, I’ve had trouble picking my favorites. Here, I have trouble picking the songs I remember.

Some of them stand out. “Say No” is a classic Dan Gillespie-Sells piano ballad, and “Another Soldier” makes fine use of its creepy string section. “Leave Me Out of It” is an adult-contemporary slog, but Sophie Ellis-Bextor turns in a fine guest vocal performance. I like a lot of the second disc better (despite the fact that the band considers these tracks lesser works – the discs are titled The Birds and The Bees), like the groovy “Dia De Los Muertos.”

The best song of the lot, though, is the epic closer of disc one, “Undeniable.” Still, this is a sound the Feeling did better on “The Greatest Show on Earth” last time out. I’m not exactly sure what happened here, but instead of the pop giants I was expecting, the Feeling sounds mortal and earthbound here. This album isn’t bad, but it isn’t the stunner of which this band is capable. It’s a bunch of pretty good songs, nothing more.

And then there’s Ann Arbor, Michigan quintet Tally Hall. Their 2008 debut was called Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum, and they all dress in white shirts with color-coded ties. They’re practically overflowing with quirk. But Marvin’s is a tremendous pop album, novelty or no – from first note to last, it’s just so much fun. Ukulele odes to bananas, a song pledging love to both Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, a tune introducing the band, carnival barker-style, called “Welcome to Tally Hall” – this thing is a delirious trip.

In the intervening years, Tally Hall has apparently been dropped from Atlantic Records, and in the process, they’ve lost their sense of humor. The new one, Good & Evil, is a self-released affair, and it’s a mature pop record, full of good-to-great acoustic tunes. The band still makes use of fantastic vocal harmonies, and their sense of melody remains undiminished.

But this just isn’t nearly as much fun as I had hoped. Only one song, “Turn the Lights Off,” reaches the heights of the prior record. The rest is well-written, fine pop music, especially “&” and “Hymn for a Scarecrow,” but it’s dour-faced, as if the band decided they were tired of being typed as a novelty act. There’s no chance of that here, but there’s also no chance this album will bring as many smiles.

Good & Evil concludes with a true epic, “Fate of the Stars,” and the band pulls it off well. In fact, as mature pop albums go, this one is pretty splendid. But it’s not why I liked Tally Hall. This album strips away most of what I found original and invigorating about them. I can’t fault the record – it does what it’s supposed to, and with a few more listens, I may fall in love with it. But right now, it’s only making me remember how much I liked Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum. Next time, they need to remember how to let go and be silly again. It suits them.

* * * * *

All right, it’s time for the Second Quarter Report.

What’s that, you ask? Well, I keep a running top 10 list every year, and at the end of each quarter, I share that work-in-progress, so you can see my thought process. Essentially, this is what my list would look like if I were forced to finalize it right now. But I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t mind that at all. The year could stop six months early and this list would suit me fine. Check it out:

10. Lady Gaga, Born This Way.
9. R.E.M., Collapse Into Now.
8. The Boxer Rebellion, The Cold Still.
7. Elbow, Build a Rocket Boys.
6. Over the Rhine, The Long Surrender.
5. The Violet Burning, The Story of Our Lives.
4. Bon Iver.
3. PJ Harvey, Let England Shake.
2. Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues.
1. Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What.

I mean, really. Just look at that list. That’s tremendous. And we have six months left.

Next week, my thoughts on Cornerstone 2011. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Sometimes the world just doesn’t make sense.

You look around, and nothing’s the way it was. Friends have grown older and grown apart, loves have gone cold, sunrises are a subtly different color. Worst of all, no one seems to notice the change. Everything feels strange and unfamiliar, and everywhere you look, people are just going about their business, as if the pieces all fit together perfectly. It’s unsettling, disturbing. It’s wrong.

I’ve had one of those weeks. Everything feels out of place. I’ve been sleepwalking through my life for days, distracted and out of sorts. I had an intimate encounter with a UPS truck, and walked away unscathed, but with thousands in damage to my car. I had lunch with one of my best friends, and spent it somewhere else, mentally speaking. Relationships I cherish are falling apart, and I don’t know how to hold on to them.

The world just isn’t making any sense. And I’m hoping that the closer I look at it, the more sense it will make, when I know that never works. You have to stop seeking out the connections, and once you do, they will become apparent.

As usually happens with me, my musical experience this week has mirrored my life. I’ve spent the last seven days trying to figure out my place in the world, and I’ve also spent it trying to decipher the new Bon Iver album. And what’s working for me, right now, is turning off my analytical brain and letting the thing wash over me. Nothing about it really makes sense, but if I just let it happen to me, instead of working my synapses to death trying to understand it, it all works out.

Certainly, the experience of Bon Iver’s new self-titled album is an unexpected one, but if you think about it, it’s no more unexpected than the story so far. In 2006, a then-25-year-old Justin Vernon watched his band break up, his girlfriend leave him and his health deteriorate, all at the same time. So he retreated to a cabin in the Wisconsin woods, and he spent three months making an album. It was called For Emma, Forever Ago, and when it was given a national release by Jagjaguwar in 2008, people responded to its warmth and intimacy.

The “cabin story” will probably haunt Vernon until he dies, but it’s a fascinating hook. Who hasn’t wanted to chuck it all, go someplace remote and just make something? Something real, something that reflects the world the way you see it. That’s what For Emma did. It fulfilled that fantasy for countless people, including me. The fact that it was also a well-made, well-observed piece of work certainly didn’t hurt. Seemingly overnight, Bon Iver was a highly-regarded success. And Vernon was left with the eternal question: now what?

Because you can’t make For Emma again. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, a trick that only works one time. Vernon spent the intervening years making all kinds of directionless weirdness, from the strange EP Blood Bank to the atmospheric Volcano Choir album, to his collaborations with Kanye West, of all people. Anyone looking to his endeavors since 2008 for some notion of where he would go next came away stymied, scratching their heads, bewildered.

Turns out, that’s what he was going for, because upon first listen, his second record is just as mystifying, like looking at a puzzle with a dozen missing pieces. It doesn’t make any sense, that first time. There is literally nothing to connect Bon Iver with For Emma, save Vernon’s voice, and even that is often unfamiliar. Imagine if Iron and Wine jumped directly from The Creek Drank the Cradle to Kiss Each Other Clean, with none of the connective tissue in between. That’s what this is like. It makes me feel like I missed four albums of evolution somewhere in there.

As intimate as Vernon’s first effort was, this one is initially off-putting. Nearly every song is named after a place, either real or imagined, and the lyrics generally have nothing to do with that place. Vernon’s words on For Emma were direct and full of heartache, but here they are abstract, sometimes even random: “It was found what we orphaned, didn’t mention it would serve us picked, said your love is known, I am standing up on it, aren’t we married?” Like the music, the lyrics take some serious parsing.

And the music. I have heard Bon Iver probably 20 times in the past week, and it still sometimes sounds like there are parts missing. It wouldn’t be wrong to call it layered, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s a meticulously crafted studio piece, one that can feature a thousand instruments one moment, and the barest whisper of sound the next. Vernon has not written easy folk songs here – this album is practically hook-free, its tunes dense and meandering and difficult.

And yet, it would be a lie to call this record hard work. It’s oblique, it’s fascinating, it’s unlike anything else I’ve heard this year, but it’s not a strenuous listen. Opener “Perth” is immediately striking, fluttering to life with one of the most memorable guitar figures I’ve heard in some time. The military-style drums slowly build it up, and before you know it, you’re in the loudest stretch of Bon Iver music ever put to tape. Thunderous, pounding drums supporting electric guitar and a full horn section and Vernon’s infinitely-overdubbed voice. And just like that, it’s over, the reverbed guitars segueing nicely into the Sam Beam-esque “Minnesota, WI.”

Really, I could describe each of these songs, and it wouldn’t mean much. This is an album you just have to hear. I could tell you how lovely it is when the clatter and cacophony of the aforementioned “Minnesota, WI” evaporates, leaving just a finger-picked acoustic and Vernon’s voice, repeating “Never gonna break, never gonna break.” I could tell you that “Holocene” is strikingly beautiful, pivoting on the line, “All at once I knew I was not magnificent.” I could tell you that the repeated piano lines in “Hinnom. TX” and “Wash.” circle back on themselves in ways you don’t expect.

But most of all, I could tell you that this record, with few exceptions, is baffling, and I would never get the true sense of that across to you. Nothing sums it up, however, like the last couple of tracks. “Calgary” is as straightforward as this album gets, if Peter Gabriel-style synth anthems are your definition of straightforward. “Lisbon, OH” is about a minute of wordless atmosphere, and then comes “Beth/Rest,” what will no doubt be the most controversial thing here. It’s an ‘80s power ballad, with cheeseball keyboards, flailing electric guitars and two, count them, two saxophones.

“Beth/Rest” makes no sense the first time you hear it. It’s like Vangelis meets the score for The Karate Kid. It is utterly, head-spinningly baffling. Ah, but that’s just the first time you hear it. Dive in again, and again, and stop trying to figure out why Vernon has done this, and the song will begin to crystallize. And you’ll start to hear it – and the nine tracks that precede it – as oddly beautiful. Keep listening, and it all locks into place. I can’t imagine this album any other way now, and I can’t stop spinning it.

I still cannot tell you how Vernon got from there to here, just like I can’t tell you how my world went from what it was to what it is now. In fact, I’m not really sure knowing that would make much of a difference. Vernon was the guy who locked himself in a cabin and poured out his heartbreak, and now he’s the guy who has meticulously crafted one of the strangest and most compelling records of 2011. If there’s a lesson to be learned here, particularly from an album he self-titled, it’s that he’s not going back. The world will not reverse course. It may never seem normal again, but you have to learn to live in it. Forcing the pieces together will not make them fit.

But if you let it, this record will slowly make itself clear. While it may never unfold logically, it achieves a certain grace, a grandiose yet subtle beauty. And that is, I think, the best we can hope for. Sometimes, the world just doesn’t make sense. Stop trying to understand it, and you’ll see how wonderful it can be. I am learning this every day.

Next week, some silly pop from Owl City, the Feeling and Tally Hall. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m back, refreshed and invigorated after my week off. Thanks for your indulgence as I turned 37. I know, I can’t believe how damn old I am either. Forty is in sight. And not “in sight” as if it were a land mass in the distance, seen through a telescope. In. Sight. It’s crazy.

I promised myself years ago (more years than I’d like to admit) that I would never be one of those old people who loses track of new music. I know too many of them – it’s like they reached a certain age and said, “Well, I have all the music I need. I’m all set.” And they stopped looking for new experiences, and started thinking of everything “the kids” listen to as garbage – or, at the very least, not as good as the stuff they grew up on.

That will never be me, I said. So I’m constantly on the lookout for that attitude within me, clawing its way out. Don’t misunderstand me – I definitely detest a lot of the music on the radio these days, but I try not to dismiss that music without giving it a fair chance. I’m wary of that tendency anyway, but I’m extra sensitive when it comes to music aimed at the younger generation. At the same time, I don’t want to be Randy Marsh from last week’s brilliant South Park episode, pretending to love music that sounds like shit just to prove I’m not old.

So I try things. A lot of things. I end up disliking a lot of it (and not bothering to write about it in this space), but I just can’t abide recoiling from music and not giving it a chance. As a wise songwriter once said, what would you be if you didn’t even try. You have to try.

Which brings me to Lady Gaga.

For a long time, I clung to the belief that there were only a few things I knew for sure. The sun will rise, the sun will set, the planet will keep turning, the government will continue to take too much of our money, and we will all eventually die. And Lady Gaga sucks, and the world will be immeasurably better when she goes away for good. I have been known to leave the room when Gaga songs come on the radio. I simply cannot stand her.

And I said all of that for years without hearing a single one of her records. I know, I’m not proud of it. But I have reasons for recoiling – I’m allergic to image-driven pop stars, and there hasn’t been one working on Gaga’s scale in some time. I hate her stage name. I know she took it from Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga,” and that only makes me hate it more. I hate the attention-starved “outrageousness.” I hate the meat dress, the bubble dress, the giant fucking egg. I hate it all.

I can tell you why. Most of the praise I hear heaped on Gaga has little to do with the actual music she makes. It has to do with how “crazy” she is, how over-the-edge she is, how she showed up nearly naked to Lollapalooza and stage-dived, and on and on. It’s a persona. It’s not real. She’s acting outrageous when the cameras are on her, and like most stars of her ilk, she’s doing it because she has nothing to say musically. She’s manipulating the star system like no one since Madonna, and people are falling for it.

Just about every Gaga song I’d heard backed up that impression. My first brush with her was “Lovegame,” which pivots on the poetic line, “I want to take a ride on your disco stick.” If pressed, I would admit to liking “Poker Face,” but I liked it more when Cartman sang it on South Park. The other songs I’d heard – “Just Dance,” “Paparazzi,” “Bad Romance,” “Telephone,” “Alejandro” – left me utterly cold. In fact, they left me angry that so much attention was being given to this woman who clearly wasn’t any better than her peers, who clearly had nothing of any substance or value to contribute.

And with every breathless media pile-on, every “OhmygodidyouseewhatGagadidnow??” exclamation I heard, every video of some public spectacle she made of herself appearing online, I got angrier. And still, I hadn’t listened to a single record. I finally realized I had to rectify that. And the much-heralded release of Gaga’s new album, Born This Way, seemed like the perfect opportunity to do just that.

But I couldn’t just buy the new record. If I was going to do this, I was going to dive in. So I dropped nearly $50, and bought everything. The Fame. The Fame Monster. The two-disc special edition of Born This Way. Even the remix record, and the three-song Cherrytree Sessions. All of it. And when I ended up hating it all, no one would be able to accuse me of not giving her work a fair shake. I did all this with a certain smugness, knowing that no matter how open my mind, this experiment likely would not change it. And I’d get to rip Gaga a new one in this space.

But then a funny thing happened. I started… well, liking some of it.

Not all of it, and certainly not at first. The Fame is pretty much what I thought it would be – a harmless, faceless electro-pop record. In fact, it’s almost shockingly anonymous. These songs could have been written for anyone, and while Gaga talked a good game during these years, she never backed it up with freaky-awesome music. “Just Dance” could be any club-ready pop star. It has not an ounce of personality. “Poker Face” still brings a smile, but virtually everything else here – particularly the fluffy “Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)” and the obligatory rap cameo “Starstruck” – just slides by. There are two songs performed with guitars, but even they don’t stand out. They sound like No Doubt at their poppiest.

I didn’t end up liking The Cherrytree Sessions as much as I expected to, either. The jazzy piano take on “Poker Face” shows that Gaga can really sing, but she isn’t in the same league as, say, Christina Aguilera. And apparently her idea of a “stripped-down” version of “Just Dance” is one with the drums turned down a bit. The thing of it is this – none of the music on The Fame or its attendant EP matches the outsize personality of its author. It’s all just kind of boring.

And that brings us to The Fame Monster, her 2009 EP. The Fame Monster begins with “Bad Romance,” and so now we have reached the point in this experiment where I was, of my own volition, listening to “Bad Romance,” a song I would erase from time if I could. I’m not sure why, but I really don’t like this song. Perhaps it’s my strong distaste for Gaga’s habit of singing her own stage name in her songs. Perhaps it’s just the overall obnoxious tone. Perhaps it’s the lack of any hooks – well, not really, but the lack of any hook that makes me want to listen again.

So anyway, Gaga wants my love, and doesn’t want to be friends, and then sings in French, and blessedly, it’s over. Comparatively speaking, though, the rest of The Fame Monster sounds timid. It definitely has more personality than its predecessor, but not enough. “Alejandro” is second-rate Madonna, “Monster” is boring and silly, “Dance in the Dark,” “Telephone” and “So Happy I Could Die” are all harmless and forgettable. That leaves the vaguely Queen-like “Speechless,” which I like, and the down-and-dirty “Teeth,” which I love. “Teeth” is the best song on the EP, in fact, a relentless crawl through the jungle that leaves you sweaty and smiling.

But as far as the first four records go, the most successful is The Remix, which casts Gaga’s voice against thudding club beats and interesting electro-arrangements from the likes of Richard Vission and Passion Pit. It’s dance music that knows its place – if you can’t go big, at least as big as your public persona, then slink back and do this. It doesn’t take a pop genius to come up with clubby bangers like these, but they’re more explosive and inventive than anything Gaga had given us to that point.

So it was with trepidation that I pressed play for the first time on Born This Way, a 17-song behemoth that arrived with the media-hype force of a hurricane. By this point, I was expecting a whole lot of not much.

This next part is tough for me, because I have to admit I was wrong. Born This Way is nothing less than the first anything-goes wild pop album Lady Gaga has made, the first one that sounds like it might have been written by the weird woman in the bubble dress. Yes, there are 17 songs, and for the first time, I don’t want to skip any of them.

Born This Way is… well, it’s kind of awesome.

I know, I don’t quite get it either. The differences are not enormous. Born This Way is an electro-pop album with a couple of live-band tracks, just like Gaga’s first efforts. But it’s clear that everything before this has been a rough draft. Sometimes literally – “Bad Romance” is self-evidently an early sketch of the awe-inspiring “Judas,” which takes it to its fullest extreme. But often, Born This Way just feels like an artist finally coming into her own.

Yes, she takes from Madonna here, a lot. But she also shows off a remarkable affection for Pat Benatar, and she refuses to be ashamed of her obvious love of ‘80s pop. The album opens with the sublime “Marry the Night,” which could have fit nicely on Crimes of Passion, if not for its European techno leanings. Its glorious anthemic chorus slides into a dance-house fever dream in its second half, and it’s so exhilarating I wondered if it set a bar the rest of the record couldn’t clear.

Not so. “Born This Way,” an obvious pinch of Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” works well in context, keeping the momentum going, if not impressing as a song. But “Born This Way” does exactly what it is meant to do – it delivers an anthem of individualism, a fist-pumping singalong about embracing who you are, no matter how odd others think you. That sentiment would mean nothing if the rest of the album had not been as weird and individual as it is.

Can you name another pop star who would unleash something like “Government Hooker” on the general public? I can’t. It’s German techno meets American club pop, with an uncredited sample from the Cure’s “Lullaby,” and it contains the line “Put your hands on me, John F. Kennedy.” The aforementioned “Judas” takes the “Bad Romance” template and finally makes something out of it – I don’t even mind her shouting her own name, the song is that good. The lyrics throw up religious iconography as a metaphor for making bad romantic decisions – and, of course, to get under the skin of the easily-offended. But I think she’s actually saying something with these images, and they certainly beat the bland, straightforward lyrics of her previous records.

I give Gaga points for inventiveness on most of the album’s lyrics. Even “Hair,” a song whose central conceit – that hair is the outward sign of one’s identity, and can inspire you to be free – strikes me as goofy and contradictory to the record’s theme, is unlike anything on pop radio right now. (It achieves a kind of techno-Bruce Springsteen grandeur, complete with Clarence Clemons sax solo.) There’s a thumping techno song based around the German word for “shit.” There’s a terrific mid-tempo ode to Mary Magdalene. And there’s a song called “Highway Unicorn,” which is pretty great. You’ll only find one typical lyric here – “Fashion of His Love,” easily the record’s low point.

“Fashion” is one of three songs not included on the standard edition of the record, but it’s the only one I would drop. “Black Jesus Amen Fashion” is awesome, a Europop stomp with robotic vocals and dark, slithering synths. And “The Queen” is a rave-up that drops a Freddie Mercury reference, which I suddenly don’t mind as much. In fact, Gaga wins my love by bringing Brian May aboard for “You and I,” a live-band ballad that serves as a late-album highlight. It caps off a stretch of stranger tunes that begins with the filthy, circular “Heavy Metal Lover” and continues with the guitar-fueled “Electric Chapel.”

But as interesting as these sonic diversions are, they don’t sum up the record. Most of Born This Way accomplishes the neat trick of updating early Madonna for the 21st Century, with lyrics that could have come from Marilyn Manson in his heyday. (That’s a compliment, by the way.) Final track “The Edge of Glory” brings all that bubbilicious ‘80s-ness to full bloom – it’s completely cheesy, and brings back Clemons on the horn, but it’s totally satisfying. All by itself, it justifies my change of heart.

So yeah, Born This Way is the first Lady Gaga album I like, mainly because it’s the first one that’s as inventive as her wardrobe and makeup. The music is finally as eccentric as its author, and finally worthy of the attention it’s getting. For the first time, I feel like there’s something here, something worth exploring. And I’m glad I decided to hear it.

I have a running bet with a former co-worker. I bet him that Lady Gaga will be a cultural nonentity in 10 years (well, seven now, I think), that her style-over-substance attention-mongering would prove empty in time, and people would stop caring. I’m going to lose that bet, but if she’s able to make huge, crazy-ass pop records like this one, and keep doing it, I’ll be very happy to lose. Here endeth the Lady Gaga experiment, and I’d call it a success.

Next week, silly pop-o-rama, with the Feeling, Owl City and Tally Hall. That is, if my copies of all three show up. If not, it’ll be Bon Iver, or maybe Weird Al. Or maybe both.

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

At some point, I’m going to have to stop comparing every Death Cab for Cutie album to Plans.

It’s difficult for me, though. I liked Death Cab before their 2005 masterpiece, and I’ve liked them after it as well. But no album they’ve made affects me like that one does. A full-blooded meditation on death and the distances that keep us alone, Plans hit me like a sudden epiphany. It remains their most emotionally resonant and musically beautiful record for me, one that never fails to move me. I think it is this Washington band’s clear apex, the way OK Computer is for Radiohead, or Sgt. Pepper is for the Beatles.

I thought it was important to get that bias out of the way upfront, because while I will someday need to stop measuring each new Death Cab record against Plans (and, more accurately, against the way Plans made me feel), I haven’t yet. The first two or three listens to new Death Cab always leave me feeling underwhelmed and vaguely disappointed. It happened with 2008’s Narrow Stairs, and with 2009’s The Open Door, and now it’s happened again with their seventh record, Codes and Keys.

And in this case, the meh is proving harder to shake off. It’s not a bad record, but I’m coming around to the idea that it’s Death Cab’s weakest for some time. And that’s a shame.

When attempting to describe the difference between Plans and Narrow Stairs, I reached for an author’s analogy: the former is a novel, I said, while the latter is a series of short stories. They’re nice stories, but they don’t pack the same cumulative punch. The same can’t be said of Codes and Keys, but I can extend the analogy – this is the ambitious follow-up novel, the one that sacrifices characters for theme, the one that aims to make a Grand Statement, but ends up falling short.

You can hear that ambition in every moment of this record. It is, sonically, the most complex and, frankly, dazzling thing they’ve made. The live-band feel of Stairs is gone, replaced by a painstakingly assembled, glittering studio construct. I can see them spending whole studio days on the exact bass tone they wanted, or trying out different decays on the piercing tones of “St. Peter’s Cathedral.”

For producer (and guitarist) Chris Walla, this is his finest achievement. He knows the band has one distinct advantage that allows them to experiment more than many of their peers, and that’s the voice of Ben Gibbard. His pipes are so distinctive that whatever he sings, no matter how out there, sounds like Death Cab. As long as Gibbard is behind the mic, gracing these tunes with his high, clear, breathtaking voice, the band can go just about anywhere and still sound grounded. And on Codes and Keys, they do – there are sounds on here you’ve never heard this band make.

The trouble with this is twofold – the layered sound creates an emotional distance that the band never overcomes, and the material just isn’t up to the task. I can’t fault Death Cab for creating a big, bold piece of work, but they didn’t write the kind of big, bold songs that requires. In fact, most of these defiantly simple pieces would have sounded better had they been stripped back and allowed to breathe. For all the wizardry on display, Codes and Keys is largely made up of low-key pop – tunes like “Some Boys” and “Monday Morning” and the title track, fun little nothings that don’t go much of anywhere.

Worse than that, though, are Gibbard’s lyrics this time out. Like a novelist seeking to make points beyond his grasp, Gibbard fills Codes and Keys with vague homilies. They sound important, but they don’t connect. Gibbard is usually very good at creating characters and then getting inside their skins, but here he’s content to stick to generalities. Codes is a thematically rich album – it’s about stepping out of your comfort zone, realizing there’s no afterlife worth striving for, and learning to enjoy the life we have. But it stays at arm’s length when it could be a moving experience.

All that said, there are songs here I love. “Underneath the Sycamore” contains the album’s finest hook, and its best lyric. It begins after a car crash, one its protagonist did not survive, and it’s about finding serenity and equality at the last. “This is where we find our peace, this is where we are released,” Gibbard sings, and the band pointedly sequences the comparatively boring “St. Peter’s Cathedral” immediately afterward, a song on which Gibbard concludes there is nowhere to go after death: “When our hearts stop ticking, this is the end, there’s nothing past this…”

I am also a fan of the tricky opener, “Home is a Fire,” which sets up the theme of leaving the comfortable. “Doors Unlocked and Open” and “You Are a Tourist” hit me the right way too, the former with its constant build and the latter with its slippery guitar and vocal lines. But no song here amazes me the way “Unobstructed Views” does. It is unlike any other Death Cab song, floating in on airy synths and ponderous piano, and then stretching that atmosphere over a completely instrumental first three minutes. When Gibbard comes in, singing of the cosmic significance of love, it sends chills. As far as I can tell, there are no guitars in the entire six-minute piece, and it’s the one moment of the album that achieves the transcendence it aims for.

Scratch that – there are actually two moments like that, and the delightful closer “Stay Young, Go Dancing” is the other. After all the weighty spiritual and philosophical thoughts batted around here, the record ends with a two-minute burst of sunlight. The strings are a bit much – I’d like to hear this tune without them, actually – but I can’t fault the song, perhaps the most gloriously optimistic and romantic in the Death Cab catalog. “When she sings, I hear a symphony, and I’m swallowed in sound as it echoes through me, I’m renewed, how I feel alive, and though autumn’s advancing, we’ll stay young, go dancing…”

The ending is so sweet that it serves to paper over some of the low points, like “Some Boys” (on which Gibbard apparently sees nothing wrong with building a song around the line, “Some boys don’t know how to love”), or the completely forgettable “Portable Television.” Even a weak Death Cab for Cutie album is worth hearing, and despite the towering high points, this one is pretty weak. It’s trying very hard, but about half of this material misses the mark, and the rest doesn’t connect with any force. Codes and Keys is so concerned with its own importance that it misses the intimate details that mark Death Cab’s finest work. It’s an ambitious and earnestly-meant effort. I just wish I liked it more.

* * * * *

Similarly, David Bazan is probably going to have trouble living up to 2009’s Curse Your Branches for the rest of his career.

After years of leading Pedro the Lion away from the spiritual light he once basked in, Bazan finally broke up with God on his solo debut. A stunning, difficult, confessional and often petulant record, Branches scorched the earth behind it, making for an absolutely riveting listen. It was as much about his own failings as God’s – “Please Baby Please” remains a startlingly tough song to get through for me – and could easily have been his final musical statement. If he’d decided that he just couldn’t top it, and drifted away from music entirely, I wouldn’t have blamed him.

But here he is, two years later, with another report from his earthly and spiritual travels. This one is called Strange Negotiations, and yes, it falls short of its predecessor. It’s less focused, less insightful, less jaw-droppingly naked (despite the extraordinary cover photo). Given all that, though, it’s a tremendous album in its own right, dark and discomfiting, full of great lines and strong melodies. It’s an easier listen than Curse Your Branches, but the punch it packs is more insidious, making itself known only through repeat dives below its surface.

Musically, I like it better than Curse, actually. For the first time since Achilles Heel in 2004, Bazan has a real-live band playing with him, and the result is appealingly raw. “Wolves at the Door” gets things started on the right note – it’s a ripping piece of music, guitars snarling while Bazan, sounding remarkably energized, spins his cautionary tale: “They took your money and they ate your kids, and they had your way with your wife a lil’ bit, while you wept on the porch with your head in your hands, cursing taxes and the government, ‘cause you’re a goddamned fool…”

Bazan points fingers a lot on this record. “Level With Yourself” includes this verse: “We’re making a list of all the negative side effects that come with the shit you let yourself get away with.” But he spins it back on himself later in the same song, compiling the same list of “the shit I let myself get away with.” Bazan is angry, but he’s also self-aware and clear-eyed. In “People,” he offers an olive branch of sorts to the faith community: “I wanna know who these people are, blaming their sins on the fall, who are these people? If I’m honest with myself at all, these are my people, man, what else can I say, you are my people, and we’re the same in so many ways…”

The strongest songs, musically speaking, are the two Bazan co-wrote with the great Jason Martin, mastermind of Starflyer 59. Both “Eating Paper” and “Messes” stomp along like the finest SF59 rockers, and the latter even works in some of Martin’s trademark synths. “Messes” could fit on any latter-period Pedro the Lion album, with its tale of personal failings coming to light. Bazan flips the script back on himself most effectively on “Don’t Change” – the first verse calls out a drunken manipulator, and the second makes clear that manipulator is Bazan himself. “When I wake up in the morning, I tell myself today I’ll make a change, but falling into my bed at night, I think, man, it was a beautiful day to stay the same…”

With all the darkness swirling around every song, Strange Negotiations ends with a fully-earned shaft of light that may be my favorite of Bazan’s solo numbers. “Won’t Let Go” is a delicate declaration of love in the form of an answering machine message. Musically, it’s a pulsing, atmospheric, low-key piece, and it spots some of Bazan’s best vocals here: “Who or what controls the fates of men I cannot say, but I keep arriving safely home to you, and I humbly acknowledge that I won’t always get my way, but darling death will have to pry my fingers loose, ‘cause I will not let go of you…”

That moment, like everything on Strange Negotiations, feels real. David Bazan is one of the most honest songwriters working today, and if he seems more reflective and less self-destructive here, then I can only take that as a positive thing for him. No, this album is not the stunning experience Curse Your Branches was. But like everything Bazan has done, it’s a worthy piece of work, another chapter in the diary of a most fascinating artist.

* * * * *

Danger Mouse is everywhere.

Just last year, he produced the Black Keys album Brothers, started Broken Bells with the Shins’ James Mercer, and released Dark Night of the Soul, his collaboration with the late Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. This year, he’s put out an EP with Broken Bells, and he’s producing an album for U2. Not bad for a guy who made his name mashing up the Beatles and Jay-Z.

And now he’s given us perhaps his weirdest project yet. It’s called Rome, and it’s a collaboration with Italian composer Daniele Luppi. It’s a spaghetti western soundtrack without a movie, and it features Jack White and Norah Jones on vocals. It’s a hard record to explain, but an easy one to like. It’s roughly half instrumental, and Danger Mouse and Luppi have crafted a minor-key, walking-through-the-desert sound here that is immensely appealing.

But most people won’t come to Rome for that. They’ll come to hear White and Jones, completely out of their usual contexts, and it’s worth it. White shows up first, on the slippery “The Rose With a Broken Neck,” and as you’d expect from a musical chameleon, he fits right in. He’s awesome on “Two Against One,” the closest this record comes to rocking out. Jones, however, is the revelation – she sounds awake and alive on slinky ‘70s-style tracks like “Season’s Trees,” or at least more awake and alive than I’ve heard her. She’s an inspired choice for this material.

Luppi’s string and choral arrangements are terrific, never overpowering (or even stepping forward, really), but always adding atmosphere. “Her Hollow Ways” is built around a delicate celesta line, and as quiet as that instrument is, it’s front and center here amidst an orchestra and a hundred voices. White wrote the lyrics for all three songs he sings, and his finest moment is on the closer, “The World.” He whips out his falsetto, which perfectly complements the slinky bass, swirly organ and swelling strings.

I have no idea who Danger Mouse made this album for, besides himself. But it’s wonderful stuff, and further proof that this guy can do just about anything. I don’t mind someone so talented cropping up all over the place – in fact, I hope his steady production work leads to more fascinating side trips like this one. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I hit play on this one, but Rome is a complete, smashing success.

* * * * *

Wow, June already? When next we speak, I will be 37 years old. I know, it’s crazy. You’re going to want to be here for next week – I’ve decided to jump into the world of Lady Gaga, and give it an honest review. If I can swallow my bile long enough, that is. (Open mind, open mind!)

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Here are a couple of disturbing statistics for you.

So far in 2011, I have bought 119 new albums. Now, there are some I haven’t heard yet, including the ones from this week, like Thurston Moore’s new album, and Neal Morse’s new Jesus-rock opera. But so far, a total of 53 of those new records have struck me as unremarkable, and not worthy of a review.

That’s not a bad average, actually. 2011 is shaping up to be the best year in some time. Under normal circumstances, the number of yawn-inducing albums would be much higher. Most of these discs this year are not going to be worth the three or four sentences I give them in my annual Fifty Second Week column in December.

But often lost amidst the flood of nothing much are often very good records that just don’t inspire me to review them right away. Sometimes these just slip right by until Fifty Second Week, and I find myself with less than a minute to extol the virtues of albums that deserved better from me.

So this week, I thought I’d make time for some good records that got lost in the shuffle already this year. None of these turned my world upside down, but all of them are worth hearing and owning. Here’s a look at three that almost got away.

* * * * *

There’s an entire generation of kids now who only know Nirvana as Dave Grohl’s old band.

That amuses me to no end. You all know I’m not Kurt Cobain’s biggest fan, and I believe Nirvana’s three albums don’t even come close to deserving the enduring acclaim they get. But this isn’t about Nirvana. It’s about Dave Grohl, that band’s drummer, who has gone on to be one of the brightest lights in the rock and roll firmament.

To my mind, Foo Fighters have been a better and more consistent band than Nirvana all along. From the time they hit their stride, on 1997’s The Colour and the Shape, the Foos have put out one solid rock record after another. And now we have the seventh, Wasting Light, and it may be one of the best. Recorded quickly in a basement, this album contains no bells and no whistles. It is straightforward guitar rock from a group that knows how to do that shit right.

Wasting Light takes off right out of the gate with the one-two punch of “Bridge Burning” and “Rope,” two songs that continue the Foo Fighters standard of propulsive rock with hummable melodies. Bob Mould sits in on “Dear Rosemary,” a song with a Joe Jackson-esque verse riff, and Grohl takes on Motorhead (with a truly convincing scream) on “White Limo.”

The big news for old-school fans will be “I Should Have Known,” which brings Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic into the fold for four minutes. It is one of the most distinctive pieces here, its slow, almost bluesy crawl eventually exploding into a ferocious caterwaul. But it’s just another melodic monster on an album full of them. I’m particularly fond of “Arlandria,” with its killer chorus, and “These Days,” a bitter tale of ill wishes. And closing track “Walk” sums up everything that’s great about the Foo Fighters.

After I heard Wasting Light for the first time, I asked my Twitter legion if it was better than anything Nirvana had ever done. This is an uncomfortable proposition for a lot of people, but not for me – I think the answer is a resounding yes. This is unpretentious and unassuming stuff, the Foo Fighters content with writing tight, powerful little pop songs, and then playing them as loudly as they can. I love this kickass little disc.

* * * * *

I owe this next one to Andrea Dahlberg. Without her, and her devotion to NPR’s new music reports, I may never have discovered The Head and the Heart. And my year would have been that much less joyful.

The Head and the Heart is a subtle, down-home sextet from Seattle, with an appealing piano-folk sound. I’m not absolutely sure why these songs work for me as well as they do, but I think just about every track on this thing is marvelous. “Ghosts,” for example, floats on an easy groove, but lifts off when it gets to its hummable chorus. “Down in the Valley” is similarly simple, but the piano figure that comes in near the end is haunting and wonderful.

“Rivers and Roads” is my favorite, and I was surprised to learn that it was initially not included on this record. The voices of Josiah Johnson, Jonathan Russell and Charity Rose Thielen intertwine throughout the song, but come together in a glorious yearning at the end: “Rivers and roads, rivers ‘til I reach you…” As I said, I don’t know why something so traditional works for me on so many levels, but it really does.

Similarly, I’m not sure why “Sounds Like Hallelujah” leaves an idiot grin on my face, but it does. And closer “Heaven Go Easy on Me” is no more interesting, on its face, than a million other songs that use the same chords, but this one gets me. Something about the loose, lush harmonies and the lovely piano. And the strings that bring the record to a close are shivering and sweet.

I don’t know why this record has crept into my list of favorites from 2011. I’m just glad it has. The Head and the Heart doesn’t do much for my head, but it grabs my heart and holds on. Can’t wait to hear more.

* * * * *

One reason some of these albums slip through is that I just don’t have anything new to say about the bands that produce them.

A good case in point is Explosions in the Sky. This Texas quartet plays dramatic, sky-splittingly lovely guitar-based instrumental music, full of high drama and subtle interplay. They compose these mini-symphonies and play them with grace and power – they’re not a metal band like Pelican, but they’re not post-rock like Mogwai. They make beautiful noise, and they’ve essentially plied the same trade for 11 years.

And they’ve just done it again, with their fifth full-length, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care. The sound is a little quieter, but no less cathartic and layered here, and these six tracks are as good as anything the band has ever done. But they sound just like everything else the band has ever done. If you liked them before, you’ll like this. If you’ve never heard them, you may as well start with this. It’s no more or less accomplished than any other entry in their stellar catalog.

One thing I can say – the packaging on Take Care is their most elaborate, and most striking. It unfolds into a model house, with illustrations inside and out, and includes a fold-out plot of ground to place that house on, with views from above and underneath. It’s fittingly both pastoral and ominous, and it provides you with the only reason I can think of to buy this record over any other Explosions effort.

It may sound like I think their consistency is a bad thing, but I don’t. I adore Explosions’ sound, and wouldn’t want them to change it unnecessarily. Take Care is another wonderful ocean of clean guitars and atmospheres, punctuated by moments of fury. They do what they do very well, and even though it leaves me with little to add each time out, I hope they keep doing it.

* * * * *

Next week’s column is brought to you by the letter D, with Death Cab, David Bazan, Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

For about a year and a half, Queen was my favorite band. Period.

I can’t even remember the first Queen song I heard. But I know it wasn’t “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I vividly recall hearing that for the first time, as intended, at the end of 1975’s A Night at the Opera, and gasping for breath as it unspooled. By that time, though, I was already a Queen fan. In fact, I’m pretty sure I heard 1976’s A Day at the Races before A Night at the Opera.

You can blame Hollywood Records for that. When they remastered and re-released Queen’s catalog in the U.S. for the band’s 20th anniversary in 1991, they did so in random order. I can’t quite remember how it broke down, but the label sent these out into the world in groups of four, with no rhyme or reason – ‘80s synth-pop next to ‘70s drama-rock next to the Flash Gordon soundtrack.

So I collected the Queen catalog in random order, as the remasters came out, and tried to fit them together into a picture of this band that was like no other I’d ever heard. I was a pretty dramatic kid in high school, and Queen fit that mold perfectly for me. If Queen were anything, they were hugely dramatic. They didn’t just make records, they threw extravagant musical parties, and invited every style and genre they could think of to come on in and have a good time.

Right at the center of this maelstrom was Freddie Mercury, the first musician I honestly idolized. He was flamboyant, he was ridiculous, he was outsize, he was clearly omnisexual, he was campy and grand and silly and brilliant. But at 17, I didn’t care about any of that. All I cared about was this: Freddie Mercury could play and sing anything. Anything at all. His voice… man, his voice. He’s rightly considered one of rock’s all-time finest singers. He was almost supernaturally gifted, and no matter what type of songs he chose to sing, he would have been a superstar.

And with Queen, genre walls just didn’t exist. They were the first band I encountered whose albums played like mix tapes. From crushing rock to swinging jazz to funk to disco to opera, they threw everything at the wall, chucked everything into their massive cosmic blender and hit puree. They were phenomenally democratic – all four members brought songs to the table, and sang lead, and their differing influences rubbed up against one another. You’d think it would be uncomfortable and jarring, but every time, they made their insane diversity work.

The best, most over-the-top amazing songs on every Queen album came from Mercury. He’s the one who brought in Broadway and ballet and ‘30s balladry, and later, reggae and rap. He was, in a lot of ways, my gateway to a dozen different styles I may not have explored otherwise.

And Freddie Mercury’s death from AIDS in November of 1991 was the first celebrity demise to truly affect me. I remember waking up to my alarm clock radio that morning, and hearing the news – one day after he’d announced his disease to the world, he succumbed to it. I walked around in a numb haze that day, trying to come to grips with the idea that there would be no more new Queen music. (This was before posthumous LP Made in Heaven was announced, of course.)

I’ve been listening to the Queen catalog for 20 years now, and my appreciation of it has only deepened. I still have never come across another band like them. Ironically, I think I understand and appreciate the ridiculousness of a lot of what they did now more than I did at 17. When you’re young, the world is full of outsize dramatic gestures, but as you get old and you calm down, those gestures start to look like flailing.

Mercury’s never did, at least to me. Queen could be silly, sure – just check out the video for “I Want to Break Free,” which all but ended their career in America. But Mercury himself was a grandly dramatic person, and each of his excesses seemed to flow naturally from his personality. He was genuinely a big ball of ideas, and he wrote them large. Sometimes his tendency to try anything failed him, but more often than not, it worked, and it painted a picture of a born performer showing you his heart in the only way he knew how.

This year is Queen’s 40th anniversary, and in celebration, the surviving band members are remastering the catalog again, and releasing it with oodles of bonus tracks. And so I am dutifully buying it all one more time, and joyfully making my way through it. This time, they’re doing it right – three batches of five studio albums, all in chronological order (with, presumably, the live records to follow).

So this is God Save the Queen, my three-part journey through Queen’s studio catalog – one column for each batch of reissues, as they come out. I’ve spent the last few days with the first five. The bottom line is, of course, that you should buy all of these immediately, if you like campy and wonderful pop music. These early records chart a progression that leads to the ecstatic explosion of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and it’s music no other band could have made.

Here’s my attempt at telling you why.

Queen (1973).

One thing I’d forgotten is what a rock band Queen was when they started out. Man alive, does this first record rock. It is stripped-down and raw and bare, even in this spit-shined new version, and Brian May’s guitar is everywhere. You could almost call some of it metal, particularly “Modern Times Rock and Roll” and the progressive monster “Liar.” I remember thinking of this as Queen’s humble beginnings, but there’s nothing humble about this album at all.

“Keep Yourself Alive” announces itself right away, with May’s chugging guitar, but it’s Mercury’s supple voice, layered but not yet expanded into celestial choirs, that leaves the greatest impression. “Liar” is his tour-de-force here – he snarls and swoops and makes death-defying leaps with that voice. It’s just remarkable. But then listen to “Doing All Right,” where he achieves a restrained subtlety that’s simply beautiful.

I guess my initial teenage dismissal of this record had more to do with the fact that the band’s trademarks haven’t fully established themselves yet. May never constructs a guitar orchestra here, the band’s remarkable harmonies are present but not yet knock-you-down amazing, and Mercury rarely plays piano. But as a document of a phenomenally talented rock band just slamming its way through some powerhouse tunes – seriously, just listen to “Great King Rat” – this is monumental.

Queen II (1974).

Now this, this is where Queen starts to establish itself as a band like no other. I recall having an argument with someone many years ago over whether the early, fairies-and-giants Queen was better than the later synths-and-love-songs Queen. I was vehemently on the side of the later work. I don’t know if I’d take the same position now, as much as I love that stuff. Queen II is just supernaturally good, fairy tale lyrics and all.

The whole thing, in fact, plays like a dark fairy story. The first half of the album is more restrained, coming as it does largely from the mind of Brian May, but it’s still magical. It’s here that May really establishes his guitar-as-orchestra trademark, overdubbing himself dozens of times. The opening instrumental “Procession” is almost entirely May’s guitar, and he makes those six strings weep on the colossally gorgeous “White Queen (As It Began).”

But it’s the second half that sends Queen II into the stratosphere, and it’s all Freddie Mercury. He wrote all of the final six songs on this album, and I’m not sure there’s a stretch of Queen music anywhere else that lays out his particular genius like this one does. It never stops moving – “Ogre Battle” is a nimble epic that glides right into the manic “The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke,” and then dissipates into the lovely “Nevermore.” And then there is “The March of the Black Queen,” a masterpiece of flailing piano and soaring vocals that could easily have spun out into silliness. But it doesn’t.

I still don’t have much of an emotional attachment to Queen II – the Brothers Grimm stuff really keeps me at a distance. But listening to it, you can hear the band gaining confidence by the note, crafting its identity out of ambition and sheer joy. I didn’t have a lot of time for Queen II when I was a teen, but now I consider it one of early Queen’s best records.

Sheer Heart Attack (1974).

I remain amazed that they put this one out the same year as Queen II. It’s a more grounded effort, but somehow more ambitious than its predecessor, and it sounds like it took years of work to craft.

While the first two albums never found Queen straying too far from the ‘70s pomp-rock mold, Sheer Heart Attack is all over the place. It’s the first mixtape Queen album, nimbly leaping from one genre to the next, and blithely segueing all of those genres together into mad medleys. This is Queen’s most self-assured record yet, and it’s fitting that it’s the one on which they put away the fantasy lyrics and tell earthbound stories.

This is just the second half. It opens with “In the Lap of the Gods,” a massive bit of high drama, vocal harmonies spilling out all over. That slams into “Stone Cold Crazy,” an honest-to-god slab of molten metal (so convincing that Metallica didn’t change it at all when they covered it in 1990), which then stops short for a minute-long piano ditty called “Dear Friends.”

Then comes “Misfire,” a two-minute classic acoustic pop song, and it’s followed directly by “Bring Back That Leroy Brown,” a ‘30s-style jazz stomper, complete with ukulele, banjo and acoustic bass. Seriously, all it needs is a washboard, but the harmonies on this one are breathtaking. And then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, it segues from that into “She Makes Me,” a strummed ballad with a martial drum beat. The finale is “In the Lap of the Gods… Revisited,” tying it all together. But seriously, none of these songs sound even remotely like one another.

I remember listening to this all the way through for the first time in my car, and not being able to keep up with all the sharp left turns the band was throwing at me. (I handled the sharp turns on the road just fine, thank you.) Sheer Heart Attack still impresses me. Oh, and I didn’t even mention that it also includes “Killer Queen,” one of Mercury’s best singles. It’s also the only song I’ve ever stumped a piano bar player with. This album is just incredible.

A Night at the Opera (1975).

For many people, this is Queen’s finest hour. It’s difficult to argue. This album marked the apex of their studio ambitions – after this, they started stripping back, becoming ever so slightly more straightforward. But A Night at the Opera is an uncontrolled burst of anything-goes insanity, and if you’ve never heard it, you’re going to want to buckle up.

Diving through this again for the first time in a while, I’m struck anew by what a weird record it is. It’s one of Queen’s most successful albums, but the band was clearly not looking to shift units. This is a record that sequences venomous rant “Death on Two Legs” next to jazzy, field-of-flowers lilt “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon” next to deliriously silly ham-fisted rocker “I’m in Love With My Car” as if every band expects its fans to make these leaps.

Everybody stepped up on this one. John Deacon contributed “You’re My Best Friend,” a moment of electric-piano sweetness amidst the chaos. Brian May hit a home run with “’39,” a toe-tapping folk song about time-traveling space explorers, and composed a guitar jazz band score for the remarkable “Good Company.” And Roger Taylor wrote the aforementioned “I’m in Love With My Car,” perhaps the album’s silliest moment (and that is saying something), and then played it perfectly straight.

But it’s Mercury whose horizons just explode on this thing. Vocally, he’s never sounded better – listen to the a capella section of “The Prophet’s Song” for some of the best rock vocals you’re likely to hear, and then be amazed and moved by his tender reading of “Love of My Life.” And there isn’t a more Freddie Mercury song than “Seaside Rendezvous.” That one has a kazoo choir. Really.

It all leads to Mercury’s masterpiece, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which has certainly been overplayed. (Damn you, Wayne and Garth.) But try listening with fresh ears. This thing is unbelievable, more like a particularly complex show tune than a rock anthem. Just the vocal arrangement alone is enough to drop your jaw, and when the operatic section crashes into a full-on rock explosion, it’s an iconic moment. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the moment when Queen went so far over the top they couldn’t see land anymore, and I’m glad they took their moment and seized it.

A Night at the Opera holds up brilliantly, 36 years after its release. I’ve heard a lot of operatic rock bands in my time, but I’ve never heard another album like this one. I remember driving my friend Chris around in my car and listening to the second half of this album one afternoon, by way of explaining why I love this band so much. It still holds true. Is this their best record? I still can’t choose, but I will say this: they never hit these heights of pure ambition again.

A Day at the Races (1976).

In thinking about it, this may be the first Queen album I heard. It was either this or News of the World. Yes, A Day at the Races is a clear sequel, taking its name from another Marx Brothers movie and arriving with a similar cover design. But no, this isn’t A Night at the Opera part two. This is the pullback, the more subdued follow-up, the surest sign that Queen is not going to give us another “Bohemian Rhapsody,” ever.

But hell, A Day at the Races is a splendid record in its own right. It’s more meat-and-potatoes than its predecessor, but it still glimmers and shines. It opens with a more traditional ‘70s rocker (“Tie Your Mother Down”), and includes straightforward pop tunes “Long Away,” “You and I” and closing ballad “Teo Torriattte.” There are no startling moments in any of these songs, but they’re all very enjoyable.

And it’s not like Freddie Mercury is silent. “The Millionaire Waltz” is wonderful, showing off his godlike falsetto and bringing in some of those operatic harmonies. “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy” is the record’s most toe-tapping moment – it’s truly awesome. And “You Take My Breath Away” is almost inhumanly beautiful. It may be Mercury’s most fragile and gorgeous track, and May’s whispering guitars add immeasurably.

And then there is “Somebody to Love,” the gospel-pomp hit single. I love this song, completely and unabashedly. Mercury sings the living hell out of it, too. (He even sells the line “They say I’ve got a lot of water in my brain.”) “Somebody to Love” makes me grin like an idiot every time. If that’s not the mark of wondrous pop music, I don’t know what is.

So yeah, A Day at the Races is a bit of a comedown after A Night at the Opera’s brilliant excess. But it’s a solid, thoroughly entertaining effort. I have great affection for this album, and I still come away from it satisfied.

I haven’t mentioned any of the new bonus tracks. Each of the remasters comes with a bonus EP of demos, b-sides and remixes, and they’re all worth hearing. I’m especially fond of the a capella mixes of “Leroy Brown” and the operatic section of “Bohemian.” Hearing these vocal arrangements unadorned is revelatory. And it’s also good to have “Mad the Swine” and “See What a Fool I’ve Been.”

Queen’s UK label has announced the second run of reissues (from News of the World to Hot Space) for next month. We should get them over here shortly, so look for another installment of God Save the Queen soon.

I know some of you follow this column for news about me and my life, so I thought I would tell you that I officiated my sister Emily’s wedding last weekend. It was a perfect outdoor ceremony, and I was honored to be the one to say “man and wife.” I’ve written quite a bit more about it on Patch this week here. Congrats and love to Emily and Bill, as they start their life together.

I’m very tired, so I’m calling it a night. Next week, some forgotten gems from this year, including the Foo Fighters, The Head and the Heart, and Explosions in the Sky. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

There’s nothing quite like that first time. Sliding it in, pushing the right buttons to get things rolling, and then lying back and enjoying yourself for half an hour or more…

I am, of course, talking about listening to a new CD. (Why, what were you thinking?) The first time through is crucial – sure, if it’s a good album, you’ll pick more things up as you spin it again, but the songs will never again take you by surprise. That first time through, you’re sailing without a compass, driving without a map. And it can be an amazing experience.

This week, I thought I’d try to share that experience. I’m going to review three new albums by writing down my first impressions of them as they play. I’ll write intro and outro paragraphs, of course, but the bulk of the review will be live-blogged. I’ve chosen three albums that all hover around the 30-minute mark, too, so these reviews shouldn’t get out of control. And anyone cynically suggesting that this method will allow me to wrap up this week’s column in less than two hours wouldn’t be off the mark either. Hey, I have to do something to get back on schedule.

With any luck, this will offer up three more reasons why 2011 is a great year for new music. But I don’t know, since I haven’t heard any of these records yet. Let’s remedy that, right now.

* * * * *

Sloan turns 20 this year.

That’s kind of an incredible statement, I think. The Nova Scotian quartet began as snarky pseudo-grunge-poppers, issuing their debut EP in 1992. Their first kind-of hit was “Underwhelmed,” a pun-filled college rock ditty covered in distortion and reverb. But by the time they stripped all that grunge away for their second, Twice Removed, they were no longer darlings of the U.S. music scene.

It was a thoroughly different story in their native Canada, where they have endured as one of that country’s most popular bands. These days they sound like killer ‘70s power pop, like they own a time machine and whenever they need a new record, they just pop back 40 years and grab one. They’ve made nine wildly different albums, and all of them are worth hearing. And now they’ve issued the tenth, their 20th anniversary party, called The Double Cross. (Or, XX. You know, as in 20.)

Sloan works in an interesting way – all four members write and sing their own songs, and usually produce them as well. Then they weave those disparate recordings into a seamless album, and I mean seamless – most Sloan albums segue from first tune to last. (That was a particularly fantastic trick on their 2006 effort, the 30-song Never Hear the End of It.) I wasn’t too thrilled with the last Sloan record, 2008’s Parallel Play. Will The Double Cross make up for it? Let’s find out.

Man, do I love this first track. “Follow the Leader” is bassist Chris Murphy’s tune, and it sounds like a long-lost nugget from the ‘60s psychedelic rock days. Crappy-sounding drums, killer acoustic riff, pizzicato organ hits, and a melody to kill for. It’s superb, and hopefully sets the tone. “Leader” does an about-face at the end, and segues (yes!) into “The Answer Was You.” Guitarist Jay Ferguson picks up the melodic baton and runs with it. This song is delightful, and has some nice mellotron. Matthew Sweet would like this one. It sounds more like an album-ender than a second track, but I dig it.

“Unkind” comes in as “Answer” fades out, and the electric guitars chime in with a classic-sounding power pop riff. “Are you ready?” sings guitarist Patrick Pentland, always the meat-and-potatoes rock guy in the band. This song is simple yet effective, landing somewhere between toe-tapping and boring. Great harmonized guitar in the middle eight, though. It ends cold, too, breaking up the segues. But now here’s Murphy’s “Shadow of Love,” and it’s awesome – a ‘60s-style raveup with some jangly guitars. The organ’s back, and it adds immeasurably to the feel. Love this one.

That was fast. Less than two minutes later, we’re in drummer Andrew Scott’s “She’s Slowing Down Again.” Scott is the guy who writes the slower epics, and this one sounds like it fits that mold. Pianos, swirly guitars, harmonies, nice psychedelic melody. Oh, and he lets Murphy take lead in the bridge. Very nice. Another full stop before Ferguson’s delicate “Green Gardens, Cold Montreal.” This is really nice, and the chorus, with its starts and stops, is memorable. In all, though, this record is flying by a little too quickly for me so far.

Bam! “It’s Plain to See” erupts with a Merseybeat bang. This is Scott’s song, I think, and it rocks. This is one thing I love about Sloan – when they want to sound like the ‘60s, they sound like the ‘60s. The tambourines are just right, the guitars have exactly the right tone, the mix is perfectly vintage. You have to hear Murphy’s bass on this one too. It’s great. “Your Daddy Will Do” comes in right after, and is weirder, kind of a ‘70s AM radio thing. The Sloaners are trading off lead vocals, something that rarely happens. It makes me smile, though – makes me feel like they’re going to be around a while longer. Wow, the middle eight on this one is great, very Jeff Lynne.

Four drumstick clicks announces Pentland’s “I’ve Gotta Know,” another one Matthew Sweet would like. Four stomping chords, harmonies, good chorus, in and out like a sudden storm. And the record is three-fourths over. Too fast! I already like “Beverly Terrace,” with its thumping bass drum and piano figure. Ferguson sings this one, and it sounds like Spoon. Some surprising synthesizers in there too. And the harmonies! Love them.

Wow, these songs are over too quickly. We’re already on track 11, “Traces,” which sounds like a cool spy thriller thing, with that Ray Manzarek organ sound. It’s Scott, in Bob Dylan mode, rattling off lyrics like bullets. Good stuff here. “Seems like time’s agin us.” Yes, “agin.” Really smooth chorus, too. This one’s practically an epic at 4:30. And now were in the final track, “Laying So Low,” which opens with soft string sounds, and slides into gingerly-strummed electric guitar. It’s Murphy in heart-on-sleeve mode, crooning a simple mid-tempo benediction that builds up to a fine conclusion They were right to end with this.

Sloan has delivered once again. But man, that was over fast. Thirty-minute albums were perfectly acceptable in the ‘60s, but still get a bit of a head-scratch from me now. But beyond wanting more (and more and more) of this, I really enjoyed The Double Cross. Twenty years in, and Sloan remains one of the best pop bands around. I’ll be humming most of these songs for days.

* * * * *

I mentioned last week that Fleet Foxes is a band I discovered thanks to my new policy of paying more attention to new acts. The Antlers is another. I bought this New York trio’s label debut, Hospice, expecting the soaring guitars and huge choruses Pitchfork promised me in their review. But what I got was so much better – a full-on concept record about letting the dead move on, and learning to live your life again. It was so good, so powerful that it reduced me to tears.

At the time, I sort of hoped the Antlers would never make another record, because Hospice is such a singular achievement. But they went and did it anyway. The new one is called Burst Apart, and as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have a uniting theme. It does have my favorite cover illustration of the year so far, though. I haven’t heard a note of this album yet, and I’m a little scared to press play. Which I’ve just done, so hang on.

OK, the first thing I need to do is realize that this is not Hospice, and not judge it on that scale. The opening track, “I Don’t Want Love,” starts with a pretty typical guitar and piano progression, and Peter Silberman’s fine falsetto. It’s an all right beginning, but nothing that makes me sit up and take notice yet, even with the ringing guitars in the chorus. Definitely some U2 influence here, and I like the breakdown near the end. Silberman has a truly great voice.

“French Exit” starts off with the electric piano again, and some muted guitar. I like the web this one is weaving. “Every time we speak, you are spitting in my mouth, if I don’t take you somewhere else, I’m gonna pull my teeth right out.” Um, what? This song transforms into something more dramatic partway through, but slides back into the repetitive verse. Not my favorite Antlers song by a long shot. “Parentheses” is already more interesting, its synth noises giving way to a breakbeat and Silberman’s slinky falsetto. The bass line is similarly slinky. “So close up your knees and I’ll close your parentheses.” Great line. Not much of a song here, though.

“No Widows” starts with a programmed beat and some synth blips, but it quickly evolves into a Depeche Mode-esque thing that I quite like. Thing is, this is another one that just doesn’t change. It’s the same few chords again and again, and there’s no chorus. It feels already like this is the kind of album I will have to listen to a few more times to really appreciate. Right now I’m reviewing it the way I would any other album – on immediacy and melody – and it’s coming up short. But it’s long on atmosphere, which helps it.

Now we’re on “Rolled Together,” which starts out just as slowly – little bass lick, droning organ, Silberman’s high voice. This is the song that gives the album its name: “Rolled together but about to burst apart.” It’s a nice shuffling groove, made obvious when the drums kick in, but again, this is a song that doesn’t go anywhere. And that’s half of this underwhelming record. Here now is the oddly-titled “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out.” It has some nice banjo, and I like the drum entrance. This is probably my favorite so far, simple though it is. Did I say I liked the banjo? Because I really like the banjo. And the big buildup to the end is great.

Here is the instrumental “Tiptoe,” a slow-and-low soundscape. I like this one too – the muted trumpet is a very nice touch. Finally, it feels like this thing is going somewhere. “Hounds” starts gently, with that reverbed electric guitar sound I like so much. If Julee Cruise were singing this, it would be perfect for Twin Peaks. I think I am starting to get into the Antlers’ groove – this song isn’t going much of anywhere either, but I’m enjoying it. And the best part of having Silberman on your team is you don’t need to hire a female singer for the high notes. Ah! Again with the trumpet. It really works.

I think what I’m liking about this, if I’m liking anything, is the enveloping mood. “Corsicana” keeps it going with more of that guitar sound, and some sky-high keyboard noises. Again, no chorus, but I’m caring less and less. I think if I were to press play again right now, with my brain used to what the Antlers are doing, I would probably like Burst Apart quite a bit more than I did this first time. In fact, the final track, “Putting the Dog to Sleep,” is really moving me right now. “Prove to me that I’m not gonna die alone…” This one breaks up the atmosphere with some chiming guitar bursts, but it’s still slow and moody. A really nice closer.

So this is a strange thing to say in a column about first impressions, but I think I need to listen to Burst Apart a few more times to truly absorb it. This album casts a spell, but it doesn’t do so immediately – it took me about half the record to start figuring out how to listen to it. It’s not Hospice, and might have benefitted from an overarching story, but it does tread some of the same territory. Once I started getting used to it, I quite liked it. So we’ll see how listen number two (and three and four) goes.

* * * * *

And finally, we have the Cars.

Yes, there is a new Cars album – their first in 24 years. Yes, the four surviving original members are back. Of all the reunions happening lately, this is the one I can scarcely believe is real. (Well, if Fugazi gets back together, they’ll win.) The album is called Move Like This, it’s 10 songs, and they were all written by Ric Ocasek. This is legit.

So let’s hear how it is.

Right off the bat it sounds like the Cars. “Blue Tip” starts with synthy bass, and then some synthy blips, and an all-around synthy sound. Ric Ocasek sounds the same – he’s doing that stagger-speak-sing thing he did in the ‘80s. The chorus sounds like those 24 years never happened. It’s a strong start. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but with the ‘80s in full revival, this perfect impression of themselves makes sense. And the song is over very quickly, just like old Cars tunes.

Now here’s “Too Late,” and we’re in mid-tempo mode. I don’t know if that sing-speak thing is something Ocasek does on purpose, but it screams Reagan era to me. This one is such a huge step down in quality it’s kind of ridiculous. It doesn’t really go anywhere, and the weakness in Ocasek’s voice – he is 62 now – drags this down. The synth solo is nice, but the song isn’t worth it. Track three is “Keep On Knocking,” and it smacks you with its dirty processed guitars right up front. But maybe I’m just not in the mood for this right now, because this song isn’t doing it for me either.

Things slow down for track four, “Soon,” and slowing down is exactly what this album doesn’t need at this point. Yep, this one’s boring too. Some nice Edge-like guitar stuff, some moody synth beds, but a weak melody, sung weakly. I like the buildup and breakdown in the bridge. I don’t really like anything else here. “Sad Song” is already better, its clap-enhanced beat and keyboard flourishes reminiscent of the band’s glory days. Again, ain’t much to it, though. It’s kind of sad that this is the album’s finest moment so far.

So we’re halfway through Move Like This and I’m not having as much fun as I’d hoped. Track six is called “Free,” and it has that synth bass pulse the Cars used to do all the time. And… oh my, is that a guitar riff? About time. It’s half-hearted, but I like it. And a chorus? Yes! This is the best song on the record so far. I like the bridge too. The record may be picking up.

The guitars stick around for the mid-tempo “Drag On Forever.” Here’s hoping the title’s a misnomer. Can’t say I like the chorus much, and the single-note lead guitar thing is grating. This sounds like a demo, which is fascinating, given how rich Ocasek is, and the fact that they hired Jacknife Lee to co-produce. “Must this drag on forever?” Indeed. Track eight is “Take Another Look,” and it sounds like the quintessential Cars synth ballad, bongos-in-a-box and all. It’s not as well-written as their ‘80s ballads, though. The clean guitar sound is nice, and the harmonies – in short supply on this album – are welcome. But the song is a shrug.

Home stretch. Here’s “It’s Only,” which opens with guitars and keyboards fighting for space. I kind of like the synth figure in this one, but the song isn’t moving me. Yeah, I’ve been saying that all along, but it’s true. These songs aren’t memorable. The best Cars songs are ones you sang all week after hearing them for the first time. “My Best Friend’s Girl.” “Magic.” “Drive.” Even “You Are the Girl.” Nothing of that quality here, alas. Final track is “Hits Me,” and it’s just in the same vein as most of the others. Decent beat, guitars and synthesizers, no great chorus, weak overall everything.

I don’t know what I was expecting from this, but I’m let down. I think I wanted a fun new wave album, and I got a less-than-stellar effort by a band trying to act like their younger selves. Move Like This could have been a good effort – all the pieces are there, except for strong songs. If the Cars make another record, I hope they spend more time on the writing. The sound, Ocasek’s strained singing aside, is in place, and it pushes the right buttons. But the songs… not so much.

* * * * *

All right. Next week, catching up on some new stuff. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I heard it again the other day.

Some miserable pundit was droning on about what a terrible year this has been for new music. And it made me wonder if he was living in Bizarro World. This isn’t one of those cases where my tastes are different from the rest of the world. By all objective measures, 2011 has been extraordinary so far, and hearing someone say the opposite is like listening to the Flat Earth Society.

Let me try to give you the experience of my 2011 thus far, so you know where I’m coming from. Start with the new Decemberists on January 18, and the new Iron and Wine on January 25. Neither one are masterpieces, but they’re solid, entertaining pieces of music that kicked the year off well. Then, on February 15, PJ Harvey blew the doors open with her audio war documentary Let England Shake. This would be, in any other year, the indisputable number one record.

But 2011 was just getting warmed up. On February 18, Radiohead put out The King of Limbs, the first of their electro-clacks-and-whirs records I liked a lot. And then on March 8, R.E.M. released their best album in 20 years, Collapse Into Now. Somewhere in there I discovered The Joy Formidable and The Boxer Rebellion, both of whom put out amazing records this year.

And then! On April 12, Elbow gave us Build a Rocket Boys, their finest work. I didn’t have much time to absorb it, though, because on the same day, Paul Simon graced us with So Beautiful or So What, a late-career masterwork that still dominates my CD player. And shortly after that, I got the Violet Burning’s three-CD stunner The Story of Our Lives, and have been playing that to death ever since.

These are just the highlights of the first four months, people. I haven’t mentioned great little records like Eisley’s The Valley and Teddy Thompson’s Bella and Cut/Copy’s Zonoscope and the Dears’ Degeneration Street, which would deserve all the praise in the world in a normal year, but have been given short shrift in this one. If the first few months of awesome were all 2011 had in store, it would still be a great year. But we’re just getting rolling, I think.

Want proof? I have it for you this week. It’s called Helplessness Blues, and it’s the sophomore effort from Fleet Foxes. And it’s incredible.

Some years ago, I started paying more attention to new bands than I had in the past. I’ve always been one drawn to breadth of achievement, meaning catalogs that stretch back 20 or 30 years, and I unfairly dismissed many new artists as young punks with no idea what they were doing. Since I decided to widen my perspective, I’ve discovered many bands and songwriters I might have overlooked in years past. But none have thrilled me more than Fleet Foxes.

I really didn’t know what to expect back in 2008 when I spun this Seattle sextet’s debut for the first time. What I got, though, was timeless excellence. I have no idea how this band has done it, but they’ve come up with an alchemical combination of obvious influences – Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Mamas and the Papas, English folk music, Simon and Garfunkel – that transcends them. Fleet Foxes songs sound as old as time itself, like a river deep and wide that has been traveling its course for centuries. This is music your grandkids and grandparents will enjoy in equal measure. It is beholden to no time, no trend, no fashion.

Oh, and Robin Pecknold and his band write some great songs, too. They’ve come up with 12 more on Helplessness Blues, an album that changes little from the first, but at the same time deepens the Fleet Foxes experience. The multi-part harmonies, the Brian Wilson vocal arrangements, the delicate acoustic guitars, the songs that fold and change in the middle, ending up in a different part of the woods than when they began – it’s all here, seemingly untouched. And yet, this album is somehow richer, and definitely darker.

Exhibit A: “The Plains/Bitter Dancer,” an epic at 5:54. It opens with an expanse of harmonies, unfolding like clouds over a blackening sky as the guitars circle round beneath them, but just as you get used to that, everything drops away, and the melody begins, tentatively, over fragile finger-picking. When the piano slides in, it’s one of my favorite moments on the album. But the song isn’t done – as the flutes play the main melody out, the Foxes announce a stunning coda, their voices coalescing as the band erupts (well, gently erupts) behind them. It’s amazing, bringing all the elements of that first record together and expanding them.

With all that, it may sound like Helplessness Blues is a more difficult listen, but this isn’t the case. The title track, sequenced next, is as simple as strummy folk songs come, Pecknold’s shaft-of-light voice irresistibly coaxing the melody forward. “And I don’t, I don’t know who to believe, I’ll get back to you someday soon, you will see…” Even more sparse is “Blue Spotted Tail,” perhaps the album’s most beautiful moment. Over a wispy background, Pecknold asks everything that’s on his mind: “Why is life made only for to end? Why do I do all this waiting, then?” It’s the most direct lyric on an album full of similar searching.

At the opposite end of the sonic spectrum, there is the eight-minute “The Shrine/An Argument,” the most complex Fleet Foxes song to date. Pecknold’s voice breaks as he sings “sunlight over me no matter what I do” – he somehow makes that line sound like a cry to an unjust god. The song winds through several sections, including one full of atonal horns and scratchy strings, and by its end, the notion that Fleet Foxes are some hippie folk band has been thoroughly dealt with.

I wasn’t sure how Fleet Foxes would be able to follow up their debut, one of the finest records I’ve heard in years. I understand making Helplessness Blues was a long and arduous process – the band scrapped an entire record’s worth of recordings last year, opting to start over. It was worth all the time spent. This is the rare sophomore album that holds on to the debut’s core sound, all the while charting new territory. It’s not a radical change in direction, nor is it a clone. It’s a restatement of purpose, a beautiful deepening of everything Fleet Foxes is. It’s also fantastic.

* * * * *

But wait, there’s more.

This week also saw the long-awaited release of Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, the eighth album from the Beastie Boys. Yes, they’ve been making records since 1982. Yes, this is only their eighth long-player. I was surprised too, given how indelible their mark on the scene is. I can’t imagine a world without the Beastie Boys. Nor would I want to.

I’ve often said this, but I wouldn’t know how to go about pitching the Beastie Boys to a record label now. Three Jewish guys from New York who used to play hardcore, but settled on old-school hip-hop, with live instruments and some funk instrumentals thrown in. It’s almost hard to believe such a band exists, but here they are.

If they’d never done anything except Paul’s Boutique, their 1989 samples-and-rhymes masterwork, they’d still be important. But from there they redefined themselves each time out, taking as much time as they needed between records, painstakingly crafting them to sound as random and freewheeling as possible. It’s been four years since their last one, the instrumental jam The Mix-Up, and nine years since To the Five Boroughs, the last time we heard Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D. take the mic.

Granted, the Beasties had plenty of reasons for the delay, most notably MCA’s 2009 cancer scare. Hot Sauce Committee was initially announced as a double record, to be released in halves. But MCA’s cancer treatments delayed Part One indefinitely, and most of the tracks slated for that record have ended up on Part Two. (Chances are very good there will never be a Hot Sauce Committee Part One. Just roll with it.) What we have here is a single album built from the raw material of a double, and as you might expect, it’s a very consistent effort.

But here’s my problem: when did consistency become a good thing for a Beastie Boys record? What I liked about their earlier stuff, particularly the Check Your Head to Hello Nasty period, was the sheer unpredictability. I had no idea what the Boys were going to throw at me from one track to the next. They’d be sharing the mic with Q-Tip one second, slamming out a hardcore tune about bad sportsmanship the next, and shimmying their way through a slinky instrumental after that. On Nasty they sang ballads and collaborated with Lee “Scratch” Perry. They were all over the place.

Lately, though, they’ve been putting their sound into boxes. Their hardcore past is all but forgotten. Five Boroughs was a hip-hop album, start to finish. The Mix-Up made an entire CD out of those instrumental bits they used to scatter around like confetti. And now Hot Sauce Committee brings them back to hip-hop for 16 tracks, with little variation. There’s almost no fat on it, save for a couple of skits, but there’s nothing on it except for beats and rhymes.

That said, they’re awesome beats and rhymes, and the beats are mostly made with live instruments, a forgotten Beastie trademark. The record opens with “Make Some Noise,” a classic B-Boys track reminiscent of Check Your Head. The collaboration with Nas, “Too Many Rappers,” is an unmitigated delight. “Funky Donkey” is totally silly, yet satisfying, with some terrific percussion. “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win,” their collaboration with Santigold, rocks a reggae beat and does it with style. And “Lee Majors Come Again” can proudly stand with the best of their work – it’s the brashest, most propulsive thing they’ve done since “The Negotiation Limerick File.” As a Beastie Boys hip-hop record, this one is just great.

And the Boys haven’t lost their penchant for witty rhymes. Here are a couple of examples:

“Pass me the scalpel, I’ll make an incision, cut off the part of your brain that does the bitchin’, put it in formaldehyde and put it on the shelf so you can show it to your friends and say, ‘That’s my old self.’”

“I’m back on a roll, got total control, I flow like the water out your toilet bowl…”

“My lyrics spin round like a hurricane twister, so get your hologram on off of Wolf Blitzer…”

“I burn you to a crisp, sucker, back up off the toaster, I make you sick like at Kenny Roger’s Roaster…”

“Live round the clock like Disco Donut, I’m like a tailor, got the whole thing sewn up, or a proctologist, I move asses, got so much heat that I fog your mom’s glasses…”

“I go wooo like a fire engine, flashing lights to get your attention, stop sweating me about the weather, go shave a sheep and knit yourself a sweater…”

“You want to battle? Easy now, star, my DJ’s so nasty he needs a sneeze guard…”

And on and on. It’s like the 32 years since “Rapper’s Delight” never happened – it’s old-school braggadocio on a grand scale. I love it to bits. They’re never serious, and yet they’re serious as a heart attack. I wouldn’t have any idea how to go about creating a band like the Beastie Boys, but luckily, I don’t have to. Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is a welcome return for a band like no other, and if I sometimes wish it were a little less focused, it’s hard to quibble about that. It’s relentless, it’s fun, it’s the Beastie Boys. What else do you need to know?

* * * * *

Next week, some more 2011 awesomeness from Sloan, the Antlers and the Cars. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

We haven’t done this in a while. Here’s a look at what’s coming up in your local record store.

Next week’s a good one, with Fleet Foxes’ Helplessness Blues and the Beastie Boys’ confusingly-tiled Hot Sauce Committee Part Two hitting shelves. The new Dredg will make an appearance as well, and if you know Dredg, you’ll be interested to hear what an album of theirs entitled Chuckles and Mr. Squeezy might sound like.

The following week, jam out to the first Cars album in 24 years, Move Like This. But that’s nowhere near all. We’ve got the new Sloan, The Double Cross, the Antlers’ Burst Apart, Okkervil River’s I Am Very Far, Manchester Orchestra’s Simple Math, Jesu’s Ascension, and yes, Turtleneck and Chain, the new one from SNL mainstays the Lonely Island. The next week, on May 17, Danger Mouse hits us with his multi-artist project Rome, Moby returns with Destroyed, and Glasvegas deliver their second album, Euphoric Heartbreak.

David Bazan’s Strange Negotiations leads off May 24, one of the lesser music weeks of the spring and summer. (Not that Bazan’s album should be anything less than amazing.) Kate Bush delivers Director’s Cut, which revisits a few old albums; The Prodigy gives us their first live album, World’s on Fire; and Thurston Moore drops his latest solo album, Demolished Thoughts.

May 31 is another big one, though, led off by Death Cab for Cutie’s Codes and Keys. Everything I’ve heard from this has been underwhelming, but Death Cab albums usually take on new dimensions when experienced as a whole. My Morning Jacket comes back with Circuital, while Eddie Vedder unveils his Ukulele Songs. BT drops a pair of reimaginings of his extraordinary These Hopeful Machines album, one a 60-minute megamix and the other a series of remixes. And ultra-dramatic songwriter Patrick Wolf presents Lupercalia, the follow-up to the silly yet satisfying The Bachelor.

June 7 will bring us a rock opera from Fucked Up called David Comes to Life, an EP from the Appleseed Cast entitled Middle States, an ‘80s covers record from Duncan Sheik (with an unimpeachable track list), a live album from Def Leppard, and the ninth solo record from Peter Murphy, fittingly entitled Ninth. Arctic Monkeys head up June 14 with the ludicrously-titled Suck It and See, in direct contrast to Owl City’s third album, All Things Bright and Beautiful. And Battles delivers a second album of crazy prog called Gloss Drop.

And June 21 will see Bon Iver grace record stores once again, with a self-titled effort on which every song is named after a place. Neil Finn’s son Liam will return with FOMO, electro-poppers Yacht will deliver Shangri-La, OK Go will give us their first live album 180/365, and amazing ambient metal guru Devin Townsend will complete his four-album Devin Townsend Project series with two polar opposites, the furious Deconstruction and the peaceful Ghost.

The year will also bring us a new They Might Be Giants, a fifth album from Fountains of Wayne, and another reunion record from Jane’s Addiction.

But wait, I hear you saying. You’ve missed a big one. And you’re right. On June 21, the greatest pop satirist in America returns with another helping of balloon-popping, piss-taking goodness. I am, of course, talking about “Weird Al” Yankovic, and his new one, Alpocalypse. You may have heard about his flap with Lady Gaga and her people, over a parody of “Born This Way” that cuts right to the heart of what Gaga is and does. It’s called “Perform This Way,” and you can hear it here. I am an unabashed Weird Al fan, and I can’t wait for this.

Consider this your coming attractions reel for the next two months here on TM3AM. And now, our feature presentation.

* * * * *

Lately, I have been rereading The Sandman, and I’ve rekindled my love for it.

The Sandman is Neil Gaiman’s epic 10-volume (plus two ancillary epilogues) comic book saga, published in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s by DC Comics. It was, at the time, the first attempt by a mainstream comic company to take hold of a massive, multi-level novel and see it through to the end. And Gaiman’s story did, in fact, have an end – the series ran 75 issues, and that was it. It’s not even accurate to say that a self-contained, extended graphic novel was a rarity in mainstream comics in those days. It simply did not exist before The Sandman.

And it’s painfully flawed, as you might expect from a first attempt at something this complex, but in places, particularly its second half, it sings. The big comics companies have gotten much better at this sort of thing in the years since The Sandman was published, and now it’s fairly common to ask writers of monthly comics just how many issues they have in mind, and whether they will be collected in a series of volumes. But The Sandman did it first, at least in mainstream America.

I think it’s the ambition I most admire about this work. It takes a long time to read, but it’s worth the investment. I’m always drawn to art that demands much of me, hoping that it rewards just as much in return. I think creating a 75-issue comic book series with a beginning and an end (particularly an end that requires you to have read the beginning) is a bold and fearless thing to do.

Similarly, I think in this age of instant-download singles and short attention spans, it’s brave to put out an album that asks for hours of a listener’s attention. In the same way that I want to support a work like The Sandman, I want to help make it financially viable for musicians to pursue their two-hour concept albums without fear. I want to support ambition, wherever I find it. For me, even the idea of an album that expands to two hours or more is exciting, particularly if the music contained within is similarly ambitious.

You can imagine, then, how thrilled I was to get my hands on The Octopus, the third album from Manchester trio Amplifier. I know, I’d never heard of them either, until the ever-reliable Rob Hale from Kiss the Sky introduced me to them. Amplifier makes loud, loud music – they’re a power trio that takes equally from Porcupine Tree and Tool. Over two albums, they established a crushing, yet melodic sound, one that never really deviates from the two-or-three-note crawling riff template, but creates a punishing and powerful force ahead of it.

Still, they’re not a band that I would describe as particularly ambitious, which is why the self-released The Octopus is such a stunner. It’s two hours long, contains 16 expansive tracks, and is easily one of the most demanding albums I’ve heard in a long time. This is the sound of three musicians doing whatever they want, for as long as they want. Since they are Amplifier, what they want to do is often slow, pummeling riffage, but here it is just as often moody soundscapes, melodic breaks and tricky, Rush-like passages.

I was initially underwhelmed by The Octopus, because I think I expected something more out of character. The first two tracks certainly led me in that direction. “The Runner” is three minutes of sound effects, Pink Floyd-style, while “Minion’s Song” is a full-on Freddie Mercury show tune. There’s pianos and swooping melodies and a Brian May-esque guitar-and-harmonies explosion, and the whole thing is farther over the top than Amplifier has ever gone. Which may be why the remaining 14 tracks of glacially-paced guitar thuddery left me scratching my head.

But on subsequent listens, I grew to love The Octopus. The repetitive, dirge-like nature of many of these songs is the point – this is an album that sets a mood with its third track, and never breaks it. The title track is nine minutes long, and built around one two-note bass line, with creepy clean guitars slithering atop it. As a song, there isn’t much to it. As a mood, it’s splendid. Same goes for even the more upbeat tracks, like “Golden Ratio.” They’re louder, but they’re still inexorable death marches. The first disc is mainly slow punishers, with more interesting and melodic moments creeping into the second – check the eight-minute “Fall of the Empire,” a stop-time nightmare with some terrific harmonies.

If you spend The Octopus looking for the hooks, or the killer melodies, you’ll be missing the point. You need to let an album like this wash over you. Then, when you’re fully immersed in the atmosphere it creates, you can really hear how amazing the band’s playing is here. Sel Balamir’s guitar playing is top notch – check out the extended solo on “Trading Dark Matter on the Stock Exchange” – and Matt Brobin’s drums and Neil Mahoney’s bass lock together like puzzle pieces. Dig “Bloodtest,” a straightforward number on the surface, but with one of the most interesting drum patterns on the album. This band is very good at what they do.

Whether you’ll want to listen to what they do for more than two hours is the question. By never taking things above a doom-laden crawl, Amplifier have essentially rendered The Octopus impenetrable to all but the hardiest of music fans. That’s probably the intention – when the first respite offered is “Oscar Night/Embryo,” an acoustic ballad with creepy coda nestled at track 15, you can be sure the band knows what it’s doing. The Octopus is a trip, but the scenery rarely changes. I’ve grown to like it a great deal, but your mileage may vary.

Go here.

* * * * *

For all that, though, Amplifier does not win the Ambition Award for the year. It pleases me to no end to report that 2011’s clear, runaway winner is Michael J. Pritzl. And I doubt anyone will surprise me more this year than he has.

For more than 20 years, Pritzl has led The Violet Burning. He’s done it for so long, in fact, that he’s the sole remaining original member – for some time, TVB has been a rotating cast of musicians with Pritzl at its center. They’ve made a lot of albums, and in fact they’ve made a lot of different kinds of albums, from the expansive self-titled effort in 1996 to the tidy and worshipful This Is the Moment in 2003 to the roaring, explosive Drop-Dead in 2006.

But he’s never made an album like the one he’s just dropped. It’s called (deep breath) The Story of Our Lives: Liebe Uber Alles, Black as Death and the Fantastic Machine. It is two hours and 20 minutes long, spread out over three full-length CDs, and it’s a cohesive concept album, the kind where themes from early songs resurface in later ones, and a main character goes on a journey, coming out the other side a different person entirely. It’s a vast, impressive achievement, and even after 20 or so listens, I’m not tired of it – I hear new things in it each time.

It is, in short, the finest moment of Pritzl’s two-decade recording career. And even if you’ve never heard of him, you should hear this.

I’ll start with the sound. This record is LOUD. It is the rawest, most aggressive thing Pritzl’s name has ever been associated with. There have been times in the past when the Violet Burning has felt like a bedroom project, like a studio-created entity. There is no point on The Story of Our Lives where they do not sound like a real live band, playing their hearts out. There’s a palpable energy that never flags over two hours and 20 minutes, even during the more sedate final third. I don’t want to give the impression that this is all Black Sabbath slash-and-burn guitar rock – there’s plenty of Pritzl’s trademark beauty here – but aside from seeing them live, I’ve never heard TVB rock out like this.

The album is subdivided into three chapters: The Fantastic Machine, Black as Death and Liebe Uber Alles. By and large, Black as Death is the heaviest, and Liebe Uber Alles the quietest, but the songs are not evenly divided by type. The album plays like a single thought, like a beginning-to-end trip. Its opening chapter, The Fantastic Machine, also feels like a single song – its 15 tracks blend together like a pocket symphony. It’s a work of tremendous scope, and though there are no standouts, the entire thing is consistent. It is Pritzl’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and the reference is not incidental – this often sounds like prime, early Smashing Pumpkins.

The story of The Story of Our Lives follows a character who, overwhelmed with the world around him, chooses death. He then moves through metaphorical and emotional hell before ending up praising the heavens. The Fantastic Machine’s first real song is called “This Is Where It All Begins,” and it sets the tone – the clean, quiet guitars suddenly give way to a massive metallic explosion. “I love you in the fading dawn, I’ll sing it though my breath is gone, home, won’t you carry me home…”

The Fantastic Machine then follows our main character as he makes his way though the world, and watches it destroy him. The two “Brother” interludes take aim at the Christian rock machine Pritzl spent years in, but also illuminate the architecture of that machine. When Pritzl sings “the lights have gone,” it’s heartbreaking. The molten “Firstborn From the Dead” is the last sign of struggle here – from there on, it’s all surrender. The gorgeous “The Letting” finds Pritzl singing “I’m not dead yet, I’m not gone, but I’m leaving soon,” and in the album’s whispered closer “Leaving (But I Don’t Want to Leave You),” our hero chooses death.

Black as Death announces itself as the loud one right away with “My Name is Night,” and follows it up with the chaotic, swirling “Maelstrom.” “I’m falling in too deep, please get this out of me, I’m haunted, I’m haunted,” Pritzl screams, his voice in astounding form. But this chapter is not all gut-punches – the dark “Sung” is perhaps the emotional low point, our character as far away from the light as he’s ever been (“I sang for you, all my life for you, now I’m sung”), but it’s followed by the wonderful “In Ruin.” Over a web of clean guitars, Pritzl sings, “Ain’t it just like love to be stronger than this death.”

And then, Liebe Uber Alles. The title of the album translates to “love over all,” and here the light begins to trickle down. The delicate “Mojave” leads into the U2-ish “Mon Desir,” and then into the rollicking “Finest Hour,” the album’s most upbeat moment, and the one that gives the album its name. “Now you’ve carried me 14,000 days, isn’t this the story of our lives…”

It is all sunrise from this point on, but it feels earned, hard-won. Liebe Uber Alles brings our character face to face with love, both earthly and spiritual, and it’s gorgeous. “My heart belongs to you, the only song I ever knew,” Pritzl sings in “Cardiac,” and then drives it home in the title track: “And in the end, all we’ve got, love and love alone will outlast death…” “Change of Heart” is the ultimate expression of romantic love here, and the nine-minute finale, “Made For You,” takes us to heaven: “Lord of all light, I was made for you, lord of all creation, I was made for you…” The extended coda is joyous and magical, and feels like a massive release, an exultation shouted to the heavens. It is, in short, classic Violet Burning.

Perhaps the best compliment I can give this three-CD set is that, had any one of the three been released on its own as the new Violet Burning album, I would have been happy. But with all three, bound together in a case that resembles an old book, with 80 pages of notes and pictures, well… I’m ecstatic. Michael Pritzl has been very good for a very long time, but even his biggest fans are in for a shock with this record. With The Story of Our Lives, he has delivered his magnum opus, his crowning achievement.

If you’ve never heard the Violet Burning before, well, there’s almost no point starting anywhere else. This is the record Pritzl’s been working towards for his entire life. If you want to hear his stuff, this is the one you need to get. Go here.

* * * * *

Next week, Fleet Foxes and the Beastie Boys. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m writing this while still reeling from the news that Elisabeth Sladen has died.

Those of you who aren’t Doctor Who fans probably won’t care that much. But Sladen, who will forever be known for her portrayal of the Doctor’s best friend and finest companion, Sarah Jane Smith, meant a lot to me. Even as a kid, Sarah Jane was my favorite companion. Smart and plucky, with a playful nature, she was the perfect foil for Tom Baker’s wild-eyed Doctor in the 1970s. And she was a journalist, and while I don’t think she had anything to do with me choosing my career, it’s interesting to note that I was drawn to the reporter even at an early age.

Sladen played Sarah Jane, off and on, for more than 35 years. She left Doctor Who in 1977, but returned for the 1983 special The Five Doctors, and then reprised her role in countless audio adventures. Producer Russell T. Davies brought Sarah Jane back to Who in 2006, one of his many master strokes, but it was Sladen who made it work. She bravely chose to play Sarah Jane as brittle and somewhat damaged, having seen wonders and then been thrown back into everyday life. She was colder somehow, older and more distant, but still the same Sarah Jane underneath. It was tremendous acting on Sladen’s part.

And that’s the way she played Sarah Jane all the way to the end. Sladen became the star of her own spinoff, the Sarah Jane Adventures, and despite the fact that it’s aimed at children, it’s a strong show, well-written and darker than you’d expect. In the fourth season, Sladen got to act alongside Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor, and Katy Manning, as Jo Grant, the companion who directly preceded her in the ‘70s. That story, The Death of the Doctor, was a fan’s dream. It was just awesome.

Sladen was halfway through filming the fifth season of Sarah Jane when she died of complications from cancer. She was 63 years old. I don’t think it’s exaggerating anything to say she was the gold standard of Doctor Who companions. Sladen was an intensely private person – even now I don’t know much about her, and in fact didn’t know she was suffering from cancer – which puts the focus exactly where it belongs: on her portrayal of the greatest companion ever. Man, I’m going to miss her.

Rest in peace, Lis.

* * * * *

I am, for the most part, a fairly patient person.

I like works of art that take their time unfolding, that require multiple listens (or viewings or readings) to really grasp. Most music flies right by me without leaving much of a mark. Some music I like right away. But some – and it’s invariably the best music – leaves me a little bewildered the first time. I’ve become familiar with that little tingle in the back of my head, the one that says, “Listen again. And then again. You will love this, but it’s going to take time.”

Marillion is the best example I can come up with. Virtually every Marillion album has underwhelmed me on first listen. (Marbles is the only one that did it for me right away.) Their latest, Happiness is the Road, struck me as particularly boring my first time through. But a few dives later, it clicked, and now it’s among my favorites. I’ve heard this said before, but Marillion is one of those bands that annoys people who skip through to the good bits. Essentially, you either think it’s all good, or it all slides by you uneventfully. It takes time and patience to really enjoy what they’re doing.

Elbow is another such band. Over five albums now, this British quintet has quietly spun out dreamy, wispy music that irritates people who think rock bands should, you know, rock. Elbow’s music has been described by some as boring, which means to me that those critics gave the band a cursory listen, waiting for the guitar solos. There’s a subtlety to what Elbow does, and that means their songs will often seem unremarkable to the impatient.

I’ll include myself in that list too. The band’s first two albums, Asleep in the Back and Cast of Thousands, did little for me at first. I’m a melody addict, and I want my Britpop to soar and crash and weep. Elbow songs sort of bloom and fade, without kicking up much dust. I admit I didn’t pay much attention to them initially, and the songs seemed lacking somehow. But over time, the secrets unfolded.

I remember the first one to really kick in with me. “Whisper Grass,” a tune included on the American release of Cast of Thousands, swept me up in a hypnotic spell. There isn’t a lot to the song, but its mesmerizing piano figure, and Guy Garvey’s dark and lovely vocals, made me fall in love with it. And once that fell into place, every other Elbow song started to work for me. Now I consider those first two albums little masterpieces, and the band has only gotten better from there.

Record number five, the comma-challenged Build a Rocket Boys, has quickly become my favorite. Impressively, it is their most subtle, the one requiring the most patience. It opens with the eight-minute “The Birds,” a slow burn built around a repeating melodic figure. If you spend “The Birds” waiting for the “good bit” – the explosive chorus, the guitar crunch, the big drum entrance – you’ll be disappointed. Allow yourself to be swept up in it, though, and you’ll hear just how deceptively complicated the tune is. It takes its time arriving at its destination, but the trip is absolutely worth it.

From there, Rocket is a series of moody soundscapes and pretty ballads. Only a couple of songs – the pulsing “Neat Little Rows” and the off-kilter “High Ideals,” with its Mariachi-style horns – push the tempos. The rest of the album is gentle and warm, from the ringing pianos of “Lippy Kids” and “The River” to the gossamer acoustic guitars of “Jesus Was a Rochdale Girl.” “The Night Will Always Win” is the closest to a singalong anthem here, Garvey belting out a sterling melody over old-time pianos and strings. But even that is subdued, somehow below the surface, never breaking it. (The lyrics help: “I miss your stupid face, I miss your bad advice,” Garvey sings.)

The record, a compact 51:44, ends perfectly. A brief, chilling reprise of “The Birds” (sung by the 68-year-old man who tunes the band’s pianos) leads into “Dear Friends,” the warmest song here. Over a sweet web of acoustics, pianos and chiming electrics, Garvey sings, “You are the stars I navigate home by.” It’s a charming sentiment for a charming song, one that will leave you smiling. It caps off the most low-key, and yet the most impressive album Elbow has made. They’re practically the poster children for patient, slowly-unfolding prettiness, and this one requires more patience than most. But it rewards it with some of the most delicately beautiful music you’re likely to hear this year.

* * * * *

If that’s not enough British ambiance for you, you could also pick up the Boxer Rebellion’s new one.

This quartet is in the running for my discovery of the year, right up there with the Joy Formidable. I bought their third effort, The Cold Still, on a whim. I liked the packaging, and I saw that Ethan Johns had produced it. So I gambled, and I won big.

The Boxer Rebellion plays an atmospheric brand of Britpop that focuses more on feeling than anything else. But the feeling is always a peaceful sort of unsettled, an ever-building menace beneath placid waters. They rock more than Elbow does – listen to single “Step Out of the Car,” with its slashing electric guitars – but they also aren’t afraid to take one idea and make the absolute most of it.

The opening track on The Cold Still, “No Harm,” exemplifies this. The pitter-patter drums are almost tribal, though subtle, while the guitars and keys spread out over the same four chords for the entire running time. But I don’t care, because it feels right. “Maybe there’s no harm, there’s no harm in you, so watch what you see, there’s a beast in me,” Nathan Nicholson sings, while the band slides around behind him, building and building with no release.

I love the Fleet Foxes-esque “Locked in the Basement” and the relatively explosive “The Runner,” but my favorites here are the ones that follow the lead of “No Harm.” “Both Sides Are Even” is a stunner, opening up new vistas every few seconds while Nicholson explores more and more of the song’s simple melody. Each time he sings “It’s the same thing, right or wrong,” it’s like a little death, and the music follows suit. “Caught By the Light” is similarly mesmerizing, built around beautiful clean guitar patterns. And closer “Doubt” is perfectly pitched, planting that seed of unease that flows backward into the entire record.

The Cold Still sounds like the album the National has been trying and failing to make for years. It’s full of catharsis and power, taking simple songs and magnifying them into epics. It’s more accessible and immediate than Elbow, but the Boxer Rebellion still ask for and reward patience. The Cold Still is a gorgeous effort from a band I’m glad to have found.

* * * * *

And finally, there is Derri Daugherty.

It’s been a running joke amongst fans of Daugherty’s band, the Choir: one day, we laugh, Derri will finish that solo album he’s been working on. Well. the joke’s on us, because here is Clouds Echo in Blue, Daugherty’s full-length solo debut. And it’s not at all what I was expecting, and it will probably surprise fans of the Choir’s atmospheric, spiritual pop music.

Clouds Echo in Blue is an eight-song instrumental effort, inspired by the shoegaze music of the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s like a breeze over an ocean, Daugherty’s reverbed guitar falling like spring rain over beds of glorious noise. The first track, “The Sound at the End of the World,” sets the tone – there’s no song here, just droning high organ and pretty guitar accents. It’s meant to put you into a trance, and the remaining seven songs do little to break that trance.

Daugherty has long been one of my favorite guitarists, and his battery of tones is on fine display here. “This is How I Feel” finds him gently plucking a clean, chiming sound, while “Where Did Winter Go” is somewhat dirtier, distortion creeping in here and there. Throughout, Daugherty proves himself a fine, yet subtle player, only doing what is necessary to bring the song across. This is an album to play in a darkened room at four a.m., as you listen to the soundscapes flickering into the corners. The music, however, is never dark, always joyous and contented.

I’ve been waiting a while to hear Daugherty step out on his own, and while Clouds Echo in Blue is not at all what I thought I’d get, I’m beyond happy to have it. This is music that lifts spirits, that fills hearts with wonder, that gets at the beauty and joy of life without ever speaking a word. It’s been a good couple of years to be a Choir fan, and this is just the icing on top. This is slow, deep, gentle music that beckons you back to listen again and again. And you will.

You can hear and buy Clouds Echo in Blue here.

* * * * *

I hope everyone had a great Record Store Day. I certainly did. My record store, Kiss the Sky in Geneva, held a release party for Made in Aurora, the local artist compilation I contributed to. It’s an amazing piece of work, especially considering how quickly it came together: recorded in three days, mixed and mastered in a couple of weeks. Hundreds of people packed into the tiny store to buy that record and several others, and owner Steve Warrenfeltz said it was his best day ever, sales-wise, in 15 years of business. Felt good to be a part of that.

If you want to order Made in Aurora, Steve will ship it to you. Just, you know, FYI.

Next week, right here, I tackle epic, multi-disc releases from the Violet Burning and Amplifier. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.