Last week, Trent Reznor released his new Nine Inch Nails album, Ghosts I-IV, exclusively through his website. This week, he reported the sales figures – $1.6 million in the first seven days.

That sound you just heard was 400 record company executives all crapping their pants.

I’ve heard some suggest that the rise of digital media means the CD’s days are numbered. While this may be true, I think Reznor’s numbers prove that the CD is alive and well. It’s the traditional record company distribution system that’s on its deathbed. While Reznor offered his new music in a variety of downloadable and tangible formats, the bulk of his sales came from good ol’ hard copies. Specifically, he burned through 2500 copies of the limited deluxe edition – two CDs, a DVD, a Blu-Ray disc and four vinyl records in a fancy box – in a day or so, and at $300 bucks a pop, that netted him $750,000 right there.

The best part is, Reznor doesn’t have to share that money with anyone. No record company is going to be skimming off the top, and he doesn’t have to pay anyone back for recording, marketing and distribution costs. He made $1.6 million in a week, and I’m guessing that most of it is profit – much more of it than he would get if he went through a record company.

Granted, the new NIN only sold in those astronomical numbers because Reznor is able to tap into a fanbase built up through years on a major record label. This is true of Radiohead as well – the new paradigm isn’t going to work for Johnny Six-String in his mom’s garage. But as test cases, both In Rainbows and Ghosts I-IV point the way to the future, like it or not.

So yeah, the bigwigs in the music industry are probably sweating those figures. But the ones who are really going to lose out should this become the template (and it will) are the small record store owners. Reznor just proved that music stores are irrelevant – artists can produce their own CDs and get them right into the hands of their audience, no matter how big that audience is.

Now, of course, we haven’t seen that Reznor will be able to do this – the download portion of his new experiment wasn’t all it could have been, and he hasn’t shipped a single disc out yet, so it remains to be seen how his distribution system will work. But if you’re searching for a good blueprint for running an Internet-based record company right, you need look no further than Marillion – they’ve been doing it for years.

Marillion’s kind of an old-fashioned band – they’re very much concerned with quaint things like melody and thematic resonance, and they determinedly make albums, not disparate singles slammed together on compact discs. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a band exploring the potential of the Internet more than they do. For more than a decade, they’ve run their own Racket Records exclusively through their website, and they’ve fostered a supportive community of fans willing to pre-pay for new albums months before they are even recorded.

The latest of these is scheduled to come out this summer. The album, the band’s 15th, is another double-disc epic like 2003’s Marbles, and will come in deluxe packaging, with a list of the names of those who pre-ordered printed inside. My name will be there – I gave the band my $60 about three months ago, before I knew anything about this new opus. When it is finished, it will be packed and shipped to me by the band and their staff – I’m talking about thousands upon thousands of pre-orders here – and it will end up in my mailbox without having to go through a record company and a retailer first.

Lots of bands do this, but not many do it on Marillion’s scale. More than 12,000 people have pre-ordered the new album, netting the band $725,000 to record and manufacture it. And all before any real details were released.

We have a couple now. The new album will be called Happiness is the Road, referencing a Buddha quote: “There is no road to happiness, happiness is the road.” The two separate volumes bear their own titles as well – volume one is Essence, and volume two The Hard Shoulder. The first volume will be a concept piece, the second a more diverse collection – presumably, containing everything that didn’t fit on the first. And we’ve heard one song, the epic “Real Tears for Sale,” which has a nice riff and some sweet folksy moments.

I’m still not sure I like the title, but I didn’t need to know any of those details to be excited about the new record. Marillion remains one of my favorite bands, even after letting me down last year with the middling Somewhere Else. However, they are another band benefiting from their major-label years – they spent 12 years on a label, building up an audience, and many of the people who continue to buy their stuff came aboard during those years.

But they’ve claimed thousands of fans since then, including me, and they may very well be the model that Internet-based acts of the future turn to. Here’s the secret – let the fans in on things, and keep your promises. The title of the new album was posted to all of us within minutes of the five band members deciding it, and that kind of immediacy is appreciated. More importantly, though, the band has always followed through on their pledges to their fans. This is the third album they’ve asked us to pre-order, and they’ve built up enough trust over the years that there is no doubt this album will be exactly what they promised, and arrive exactly when they say it will.

And you’ll read about it here when that happens.

* * * * *

We can’t talk about bands who use the Internet to maintain their followings and not bring up the Alarm.

Like Marillion, the Alarm had their greatest success in the 1980s, though (like Marillion) they were always more popular in the U.K. than here. It was a tour with U2 in the States that pushed them into the limelight here, and unfortunately, comparisons with that band and its sound dogged the Alarm from that point forward. The original Alarm broke up in 1991, and frontman Mike Peters launched a successful solo career.

He also launched thealarm.com, and through that site began an archive of the Alarm’s too-brief life. I bought the Alarm 2000 Collection, a box set containing everything the band ever recorded, along with numerous rarities and live documents and other surprises, plus a special dedication CD recorded specially by Peters for each box. It’s still the model for career-spanning sets, as far as I’m concerned.

Apparently, there was enough support for Wales’ favorite sons that Peters called up a few longtime friends and reformed the Alarm. It’s a different band, with only Peters remaining from the original lineup, which is why he appends the date to the name – anything he puts out in 2008 will bear the moniker The Alarm MMVIII. But hell, just listen to the new stuff – this is the Alarm through and through.

With this new band, Peters released In the Poppy Fields, a massive three-hour welcome home that initially came on five CDs. To get the whole 54-song extravaganza, you had to subscribe through the website. Then, once every couple of months, a new Poppy Fields CD would show up in your mailbox. Fans were then asked to vote on their favorite tunes, and the results of that poll wound up forming the track list of the 12-song commercial release of the album.

That, my friends, is how you do it. You use the website to give the fans more than they can get in the shops, and you give them the opportunity to help direct what non-fans get to hear. Peters has always had an uncanny knack of making his fans feel on the same level as him, equal partners in the Alarm, and that’s the kind of thing that will ensure success in this post-record company world.

But here’s the fun part: In the Poppy Fields was just the warm-up act. Anyone who heard the follow-up, Under Attack, knows it was one of the best Alarm albums ever – Peters sounds half his age, and the new band smokes. The straight-up rock assault on Under Attack was louder and more punk-influenced than anything Peters had ever done, And now, at 49 years old, he’s rocking harder than ever.

Under Attack was terrific, but it was just one 13-song album. For the follow-up, Peters went back to the In the Poppy Fields strategy – he asked fans to subscribe to what he called the Counter Attack Collective, and promised them seven EPs and a full-length album, which together would make up Counter Attack, the new Alarm record. I subscribed in July, and once a month from then on, a new Alarm disc found its way to my house.

The Collective is complete now – seven EPs and one LP, all pressed on black plastic CDs with ridges, to look like 45 RPM records. Each one comes in its own mini-LP sleeve, and the whole thing fits into a nifty slipcase. It’s all meant to look handmade, like the old punk singles the music brings to mind, and in total it’s 55 tracks, running two and a half hours. If Under Attack is the new Alarm’s London Calling, Counter Attack is its Sandinista.

And make no mistake, if there’s a bigger influence on these songs than U2, it’s the Clash. Peters and his band punk up their attack, but they also add a healthy mix of reggae and dub, and they incorporate the Clash’s experimental streak. They start the whole shebang off with Three Sevens Clash, a powerhouse of an EP that picks up where their hit “45 RPM” left off – slashing punk riffs, explosive drums, anthemic vocals. But by the end, they’ve penned a straight-up Alarm anthem (“Love Hope Strength”) and given us a dubby coda (“Broadcast on Street Airwaves”).

The EPs all stand alone, like individual sides of an album – the songs segue, there are interludes, and each has a consistent musical theme. The punk edge slowly gives way over the first two hours to a more even mix of the band’s chief influences, but they deliver a number of fantastic punk-rock singles here, including “Fightback,” “The Alarm Calling” (a song that breaks a cardinal rule by naming the band in the lyrics, but still rocks anyway), “Higher Call,” “Rat Trap” and “Kill to Get What You Want (Die for What You Believe In).” These are all songs that bands with half the Alarm’s experience would kill to be able to write.

Still, some of my favorite songs on the Collective are the more atmospheric ones. I’m not sure the new Alarm has written a better song than “Love is My Enemy,” a minor-key creeper that will knock you flat. The third EP, Situation Under Control, finds the acoustic guitars taking center stage, and while I dig the old-Alarm sequel “Change III,” I love “Plastic Carrier Bags,” an observational folk song of the highest order.

The final of the studio EPs is called 1983/84 Revisited, and it lives up to its name. Here is the classic Alarm sound – flailing acoustic guitars, big choruses, songs about how wonderful the past was and how we can recapture it. In some ways, it’s a bit too nostalgic – “Reveille” is clearly “Declaration” in different clothes, and “War Song” does a near-perfect imitation of “Spirit of ’76.” But by the time “For the Faithful” is over, if you’ve ever been an Alarm fan, you’ll be moved.

The pacing of the Collective, heard in sequence, is kind of odd here – you get five tracks of wistful, old-time Alarm, followed by a 15-minute medley of old punk numbers recorded live. Technically, the live EP is the bonus disc, but it’s listed seventh on the back of the box, so that’s how I listen to it, and it feels like a bump in the road. It certainly picks the pace back up, and hearing Peters and his band slam through “I’m So Bored with the USA” and “Blitzkrieg Bop” is pretty sweet, but this doesn’t quite belong here.

It’s especially jarring because Counter Attack, the recently released full-length conclusion to the Collective, follows on from the softer sounds of the last couple of EPs. You’d expect an album called Counter Attack to rock right from the get-go, but this record is a slow burner, one that finds the perfect balance between all of the sounds the band has unveiled throughout this trip. “Riot Squad” kicks things off with a U2-ish bass line and guitar figure that morphs into a shouted chorus, and “Loaded” rocks pretty hard. As does “Right Now,” a brilliant half-reggae stomper, and the great “Gun to My Head.”

But the best songs here are the softer ones. Peters has never written anything quite like “Badge of Honour Part Two” (hearkening back to a 1983/84 Revisited track), a dark acoustic interlude. The album ends with a pair of deeper ballads, “Crash and Burn” and “After the Rock and Roll Has Gone,” which close out the Collective on a surprisingly down note. “All these songs and no resolve, all these words with no meaning,” Peters sings in “Crash,” and it’s hard to accept that he’s talking about the past two and a half hours you’ve just heard.

But before you get there, Peters delivers two of the best songs of the entire Collective. “Make It Your Own Way” combines atmospheric night-driving verses with a classic Alarm anthem chorus, and “Come Alive” sounds like a cover of U2’s “One” before it lifts off with a great falsetto chorus. Like the best Alarm songs, these will have you singing along by the second chorus, and they prove that even at tracks 52 and 53 of this massive endeavor, Peters was still turning out terrific tunes with no sign of fatigue.

And “After the Rock and Roll Has Gone” is certainly no exception – it’s actually a sweet finale, picking up on the despair of “Crash and Burn” and sprinkling in some hope. It’s the sound of Mike Peters taking stock, looking ahead to when he can no longer play. “I wish I could take you with me when I go,” he sings, “but this final step I must take alone.” It’s a far cry from the ebullient joy of “Three Sevens Clash,” and it just shows how much of a journey the Counter Attack Collective really is.

After all that, you probably don’t need me to tell you that I think the Collective is excellent, another triumph for a band I’ve loved since I was 13. The fact that very few people will ever hear this thing in its entirety bothers me, and I’ll do my part, of course – go to the website and check it out. But the fact that Mike Peters continues to write and record this much material at this high a standard of quality for his relatively small audience shows his dedication to his art, and to his fans. You can’t fake that, and there’s no substitute for it.

The Alarm will always be one of my favorite bands. They don’t have to keep kicking this much ass to win me over, but I’m glad they do.

Next week, catching up with some CDs that slipped through the cracks, and another Doctor Who review.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So you may have heard that Captain America died.

My lifelong interest in the much-maligned artform that is comic books very rarely intersects with my day job as a member of the media, but this week was one of those times. Imagine my surprise when I logged on to cnn.com on Wednesday to find Steve Epting’s detailed art staring back at me, depicting Captain America riddled with bullet holes. And imagine my further surprise as the media maelstrom swirled around this “event,” desperate to fill its 24-hour news cycle.

I’m being harsh, I know. If I were a crazy conservative or loony liberal blogger, I’d probably seize on the obvious metaphor Cap’s death presents – the death of liberty, the death of freedom, etc. ad nauseam – and use it to my political advantage. And if I had 24 hours of news to generate a day, instead of about 30 column inches, I’d probably fill some of that time with Cap’s passing. But it isn’t a metaphor for anything, no matter how much they’re trying to convince you it is.

Here’s what happened, in case you don’t know. Marvel Comics has been telling this massive crossover story called Civil War for about a year now. There were seven main issues, but if you wanted to read the whole story, you needed to collect a couple hundred comics. Which I didn’t, by the way. But this is the gist: a super-hero-related catastrophe kills a bunch of people, and in response, the government passes the Superhuman Registration Act, requiring all super-powered denizens of the Marvel Universe to get licensed.

It’s a pretty paper-thin allegory for the country’s reaction to 9-11, of course, except with one major difference – this time, it leads to a big ol’ super-hero throwdown, with men and women in tights and capes beating the shit out of each other. Because that’s just what they do. Anyway, Iron Man leads the pro-registration side, and Captain America leads the anti-registration side. They have a fight, Cap loses, he’s taken to jail, and on the way out of his arraignment, he’s shot and killed by a sniper.

Now, here’s where I can separate the people who’ve read comics from the people who haven’t. The ones who have just rolled their eyes at the bit about Cap being shot and killed, and immediately thought, “Yeah, right.” This happens all the time in comics, particularly mainstream super-hero comics. (And as a side rant, comics is the only industry I can think of where stories about flying men in capes punching each other is considered “mainstream,” and stories about real people having real relationships is considered “alternative.”) There’s hardly a mainstream comic book character that hasn’t been killed and brought back to life, and some have done the resurrection game multiple times.

Hell, doesn’t everyone remember 1993, when Superman died? Like, really, well and truly died? Except for the part where they brought him back to life six months later, I mean. I’d bet money that some of you (and I’m right there with you) have the fabled Death of Superman issue (Superman #75) in the black bag with the armband, and I know hundreds of people bought those as investments. And now they’re worth nothing, because Superman’s back, and everyone who wanted Superman #75 has four of them.

Captain America #25 will be the same thing. Cap will be back in six months – the book is called Captain America, and it continues to be published, so, you know, hard to do that without Captain America. Someone else will wear the costume for a while, but a few months from now, they’ll decide they need the One, True Cap back, and you’ll find out that the man who was shot was a clone or something, and the real Cap has been ferreted off somewhere to lie low until “the right time” for his grand return.

Aren’t super-hero comics silly?

I guess what I’m saying is, don’t believe it. Marvel’s appealing to patriotism and the national mood, hoping that you’ll buy what they’re selling without questioning it too much, and they really hope you don’t remember the lies they told last time they tried to sell you the same thing. “It’s different this time,” they’re saying. “It means something. Trust us.” And they’re confident that, with the media on their side, people will take them at their word.

Wait a second. Maybe this is a metaphor after all…

* * * * *

I could stare at the cover of the Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible for hours.

It’s a simple, shifting design – an actual neon bible, with neon pages that flip as you tilt the box back and forth. If you get bored with that, you can open the box and play with the two nifty flip books, one depicting that same neon bible, the other a group of synchronized swimmers. The sleeve the CD comes in is neat, too – it’s translucent black plastic, which you can see through if you hold it up to the light. The band spent an awful lot of money on this package, and it was worth every penny – it offers tons of fun without having to turn your CD player on.

Oh, yeah, there’s also a disc with music on it included, the second full-length from this Montreal septet. Seven people in this band? That’s right, and as you might expect, their sound is appropriately huge, like an ever-expanding horizon line. Under the direction of singer/guitarist Win Butler, the group has taken giant steps toward a massive vision of towering sonic weight, with strings, horns, all manner of percussion, vocal layering, organs, pianos, and basically anything else they can find.

The result is something grand, and it just keeps getting grander. Their first full-length, Funeral, matched that big, bold sound with inward-looking lyrics about pain and death. Neon Bible, named after the other novel by John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces), is outward-looking, a treatise against the evils of the world, from religion to the government to all the other usual suspects. It’s less of an emotional roller coaster, but thanks to some wild production, it’s more of a musical ride.

Neon Bible opens with “Black Mirror,” a crawling, ominous dirge that lets you know right away just how much bigger the sound on this record will be. The gentle strumming that kicks it off serves as a foundation, on which the band builds layer after layer of pianos, strings and sound effects, until Butler is forced to wail atop the din to be heard. It never spins out of control, although some parts of it (and of the album as a whole) sound stuffed between your speakers, like a water balloon full to bursting.

Things get a lot more accessible and upbeat with “Keep the Car Running,” a firecracker of a song that introduces Neon Bible’s biggest influence, songwriting-wise: Bruce Springsteen. I’m not sure how to explain the recent surge in the Boss’ popularity, but between the Killers, the Hold Steady and this record, Springsteen should feel pretty good about the impact he’s had on popular music. Arcade Fire take what most everyone takes from Springsteen – a directness, a simplicity and a quest for anthemic grandiosity.

That tendency reaches its apex on “Intervention,” the first single and perhaps the most shout-to-the-sky song here. It begins with a speaker-filling organ sound, which stays for the whole song, yet somehow makes way for guitars, crashing drums, a powerful string line, a children’s choir, and Butler’s careening, pleading voice. For a guy raised on U2, it’s hard for me not to like something like this, something that so earnestly and unironically aims for life-changing, world-altering power. By the end of this track, you’re either on board or you’re not, because this is what Arcade Fire has been working towards.

The record’s not over, of course, although some of the songs in the second half deliver diminishing returns when compared with “Intervention.” Moments of heart-stopping grandeur crop up in nearly every song – check out the Twin Peaks-esque female vocals in “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations,” or the almost scary strings in “Windowsill.” And check out all of “Ocean of Noise,” a 1950s-inspired surf ballad that slowly transforms into a horn-drenched showstopper.

But oddly, Neon Bible’s high point may be a new old song – “No Cars Go” appeared on their self-titled EP from 2003, but not like this. It was always a high-energy romp, a freewheeling eruption with senseless, mantra-like lyrics (“We know a place where no cars go…”), but here it’s a technicolor wonderland, simply the most joyous piece of music I’ve heard this year. I even love the ‘80s-rock “HEY” that punctuates every few bars. It isn’t much of a song, but it is a massive release of tension, and downbeat album closer “My Body is a Cage” serves as a nice coda, putting your feet back on the ground.

Neon Bible is another step forward for Arcade Fire, a band that shows off real sonic ambition in a field that rarely applauds that sort of thing. The accolades for Funeral were so far above the reality of the album that nothing could have matched them, but thankfully Neon Bible tries for it instead of shying away from the expectation. The band produced this thing themselves, so there’s no doubt this is the direction they want to go – aching to fill an ever-wider screen, angling to be the biggest band in the world. If they can keep up the growth they’ve shown on Neon Bible, they might get there someday.

* * * * *

A couple of quick things before I go.

I owe Jeff Maxwell a debt of thanks for turning me on to No More Kings. I bought the album this week on his recommendation, and really enjoyed it. No More Kings isn’t a band, per se – it’s a project based around Rhode Island singer-songwriter Pete Mitchell and his multi-instrumentalist partner Neil Robins, and features a rotating cast of thousands.

If you’re up on your School House Rock lore, you probably already recognized their band name. (We’re gonna elect a president! He’s gonna do what the people want!) If that doesn’t tip you off to Mitchell’s direction here, the front cover will – he’s in full Karate Kid getup, doing the crane kick stance on top of a 1980s-style boom box. If you guessed that you’re going to get songs about Knight Rider and other ‘80s touchstones, go to the head of the class.

But what you may not have guessed is that No More Kings is a well-crafted, genuinely enjoyable pop record with a big, wide heart. Yeah, you get “Sweep the Leg,” all about the final scenes of the Karate Kid, and you get “Michael (Jump In),” sung from the point of view of KITT from Knight Rider, but you also get delightful songs like “Grand Experiment,” about the ol’ rat race of life, and sweet numbers like “Umbrella,” a song I’d accept from any of my favorite songwriters.

And there is one point on the record where Mitchell takes a path I hope he travels down again in the future – “About Schroeder” is a brief yet wonderful ballad about the piano-playing recluse from the Peanuts strip. (Although it is Lucy, not Sally, that has the crush on him, Pete…) This song does what songwriters like Jonathan Coulton do so well – it finds the deep emotion in its pop cultural references, allowing those who grew up with Peanuts to look at it in a way we’ve never seen it before.

But if you’re not into that, I guarantee you will laugh at the call-and-response section of “Zombie Me.” And here, check out the hilarious video for “Sweep the Leg” here.

If all goes to plan, Jeff Maxwell will be a father in just a couple of weeks. He’s one of my oldest friends, dating back to high school at Mt. St. Charles in Rhode Island, and I’m glad we’re still in touch. Thanks for the recommendation, Jeff, and congrats to you and Melis.

* * * * *

Ending on a sad note this time. I just heard about the death of Brad Delp.

Delp was the lead singer of Boston, and half the reason that band was so good at what they did. Boston gets a lot of flack for what many have described as a corporate rock sound, but man, there never was a less corporate mainstream rock band. Their main man, Tom Scholz, is a perfectionist beyond all reason, taking sometimes up to eight years (and numerous lawsuits) to finish a 40-minute album, which means we never got to hear as much of Brad Delp’s soaring, layered vocals as we could have.

But the pair did give us Third Stage, one of the finest pop albums ever made. Nearly six years in the making, the album is a masterpiece of production, with some incredible and heartbreaking songs. I wore out my 1986 cassette of that record, playing it over and over as a teenager, and it still holds up. And one of the main reasons is Brad Delp, harmonizing with himself and singing his heart out. Later Boston albums saw Delp shunted to the sidelines to make room for Fran Cosmo and Kimberly Dahme. I thought that was a shame at the time, and I think it’s even more of one now.

So long, Brad. You were one of the best.

* * * * *

Next week, Type O Negative.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Dammit. Why does this always happen?

I’ve been waiting for months to tell you all that the Feeling’s phenomenal 2006 album, Twelve Stops and Home, is finally available in the U.S. I paid import price for it, and I don’t regret that for a second, because Twelve Stops is one of the finest pure pop platters to come along in many a moon. It plays like a survey of the last 40 years of amazing British pop, like 10cc and Supertramp, mixed with more modern melodic masters like Jellyfish.

It’s a sweet treat of an album, a glorious and grand confection, and I called it my third-favorite record of last year. I understand, though, that $20-plus is too much for most people to pay for a CD, even an amazing one, so I’ve been advising people to wait for the domestic release.

And now it’s out on these shores, finally, thanks to Cherrytree Records. But instead of cheering and sending you all out to your local CD store, I’m about to recommend you hit amazon.co.uk, because the American version is just… not right.

First, there’s the cover. The original release’s packaging may not have been a masterpiece, but it was bright and colorful and kind of goofy, like the record itself. It’s much better than the drab, bootleg-looking photo-and-logo snoozefest on the American release. Honestly, given the same three elements and 10 minutes, I could have designed something a lot better than this – it gives the impression that the album is just as lifeless as its jacket illustration, and nothing could be further from the truth.

That by itself wouldn’t be a problem, but they’ve gone and messed with the track order, too. This is the same type of thing that Capitol used to do with the early 1960s Beatles albums, and I can’t believe U.S. labels are still doing it.

The original Twelve Stops opens with three of the most perfect pop singles in years, one right after another – the rock anthem “I Want You Now,” the groovy ‘70s-style “Never Be Lonely,” and the inescapably hummable “Fill My Little World.” Slow burner “Sewn” was saved until later, and the more serious back half benefited immensely from the Cars-esque “Love It When You Call,” at track eight. It was, honestly, a perfect running order.

Which must be why it’s been obliterated for American audiences. Twelve Stops now opens with “Sewn,” a six-minute ballad that really belies the tone of the rest of the record. The front half now contains all the singles, including “Love It When You Call,” and the great “I Want You Now” has been relegated to track six, despite being the no-brainer opening shot. And without “Call” to break it up, the second half is now one piano ballad after another, with only “Helicopter” standing out.

Honestly, why do they do this? I understand we live in an iPod world now, and people don’t care too much about track orders anymore. But listen – I can take the U.K. version of this album and make a fan out of anyone just by playing the first three songs. I can’t do the same thing with the U.S. version, and that’s a shame. “I Want You Now,” especially, is an immediate grabber, whereas “Sewn,” nice as it is, will bore the hell out of first-time listeners.

I wish I could tell you all to go buy it. Many of you probably think I’m just being anal, and maybe I am, but the idea of the album as a whole is on the way out, and I think it’s worth fighting for and preserving. Twelve Stops and Home is still an incredibly fun and well-made pop record, whichever incarnation you choose to hear, but trust me – the original release just works better. It’s about flow, something the new version just doesn’t have, for reasons I just don’t understand.

* * * * *

All right, enough griping. I’ve had a strange, busy week, and as it’s the end of February, I’ve got no new music to talk about, so I thought I’d take the easy way out and do one of my patented looks ahead. March and April are practically drowning in new records that I’m simply dying to hear, and May is looking equally awesome. It’s a virtual tsunami of new tunes, and here’s a weather report:

The big news next week is Neon Bible, the second full-length from the Arcade Fire. I’m one of those people who thought their debut, Funeral, was pretty good, but no masterpiece, and I’m somewhat dismayed that the same critics who idolized that record are using terms like “religious experience” to describe the follow-up. But what can you do. What I’ve heard sounds creepy, dramatic and swell. The album also comes in a nifty lenticular box. Because nothing says “indie” like expensive lenticular boxes.

Also next week is Four Winds, the scouting party EP ahead of Bright Eyes’ latest record, Cassadaga. Plus, former Spock’s Beard mastermind Neal Morse keeps on progging for Jesus on Sola Scriptura, Lovedrug returns with Everything Starts Where it Ends, and we get the debut record from pop culture junkies No More Kings. That last one I heard courtesy of my friend Jeff Maxwell, and it contains winning pop gems about Knight Rider, the Karate Kid and other ‘80s icons. Sounds like it would be too cheeky by half, but it’s actually pretty good.

I’m excited to go into the record store on March 13 and buy both Type O Negative’s Dead Again and the Innocence Mission’s We Walked in Song. I’ve gotten some weird looks from the counter clerks before, but I think this one will top them all. Type O’s album is 10 songs over 77 minutes, and from all the pre-release buzz, it sounds like a return to the slow, Black Sabbath-inspired doom metal (with a smirk, of course) of their first couple of albums.

March 20 will see the new Modest Mouse, called We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. It’s supposedly the most robust production they’ve ever released, which has turned up a few noses. I’ve never been a member of the Church of Isaac Brock, and I thought the last couple of Modest Mouse records were merely pretty good, so we’ll see. Also that week, a new Ted Leo, a strange little beast called Drums and Guns from Low, and the new Joy Electric, called The Otherly Opus. I went on and on about the new Joy E single a couple of weeks ago, and I’m still not sick of it.

March 27 sees Grant Lee Phillips’ fifth solo album, Strangelet. I didn’t really talk about his fourth, Nineteeneighties, which came out last year, but I should have. It’s full of lovely low-key renditions of classic ‘80s indie-rock songs, like the Pixies’ “Wave of Mutilation” and R.E.M.’s “So. Central Rain,” sung in that unimpeachable voice. A quiet little curiosity, to be sure, but a surprisingly fun one. Still, I’m excited to hear Phillips get back to the business of writing his own songs, as they’re almost always excellent.

Fountains of Wayne roars back on April 3 with Traffic and Weather, and if it’s all as clever and hummable as the single, “Someone to Love,” I’ll be in heaven. Also that week is Jonatha Brooke’s new one, Careful What You Wish For – a snippet of the title song from that one is on her MySpace site, and it’s terrifically Beatlesque. Plus, I saw the track listing – no covers, which is a good thing. (Her last effort, Back in the Circus, was weighted down by ill-advised renditions of “Fire and Rain” and “God Only Knows.”)

Marillion’s Somewhere Else hits on April 9. I’ve heard about half of it, including all the potential singles, like “Most Toys” and “Thankyou Whoever You Are,” but also including epic album tracks like the title song and “Last Century for Man.” So far, sadly, I haven’t heard anything that’s given me chills. I’ll reserve judgment until I have the whole thing in front of me, but thus far, it’s not a patch on the marvelous Marbles. Shame, really.

The following day, we get that aforementioned Bright Eyes album, Cassadaga. The week after that, on April 17, we’ll greet the arrival of Year Zero, the new Nine Inch Nails album. Coming only two years after the last one, Year Zero supposedly plays like a cut-and-paste series of atmospheres. Which could be good and bad, but at least it seems adventurous, something the weak With Teeth definitely wasn’t. But this is from a guy who thinks Pretty Hate Machine is boring as hell, and The Fragile is pretty much brilliant. Your mileage may vary.

Anyway, on April 24, we get the return of Fishbone with Still Stuck in Your Throat; the debut of Tom (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave) Morello’s new political solo project, The Nightwatchman; and the new Cowboy Junkies, At the End of Paths Taken. Also, the new Porcupine Tree will hit stores – it’s a 50-minute unbroken suite about media saturation and the decline of civilization, with the best title of the year so far: Fear of a Blank Planet.

And now we get into the more speculative end of things. I’m usually pretty hesitant about any release date that’s more than two months away, considering how unpredictable the music biz is, so take these dates as the tentative, uncertain, easily shakable things they are.

But as of right now, Rush is slated to return on May 1 with their 18th studio full-lengther, Snakes and Arrows. And Tori Amos will hopefully end her streak of suckage with American Doll Posse, but don’t hold your breath. The following week, Bjork hits with her reportedly bugfuck insane new album Volta, and Kill Rock Stars releases a two-CD set of Elliott Smith rarities called New Moon.

And on May 15, Wilco saunters back to store shelves with Sky Blue Sky. Let’s hope it’s not as godawful boring as A Ghost is Born. Also on May 15, Rufus Wainwright will give us Release the Stars, his fifth album, which reportedly contains a song called “Between My Legs.” Fascinating… Wainwright is coming off of his two finest albums, Want One and Want Two, and I hope he didn’t lose any of his sense of drama and grandeur. We need some unabashed romanticism these days.

The furthest out my crystal ball can see right now is June 5, which will bring us Ryan Adams’ new album, Easy Tiger, and Chris Cornell’s second solo project, Carry On. (It will also bring me my 33rd birthday, so that’s all right.) The back half of the year should also see us new ones from Michael Roe, the 77s, the Swirling Eddies, U2, and Scottish singer Fish. We already have a title for that last one – Thirteenth Star – because that’s just the way Fish operates: title first, then cover art, then songs. Hey, it seems to work for him…

So yeah, that’s a lot of new music. If even half of it is as good as I expect, then 2007 could be the best year in recent memory. And that makes me a happy little junkie.

* * * * *

One last thing before I go. I need to plug my dear friend Dr. Tony Shore, who’s just released the first installment of his new podcast. He calls it the ObviousPopCast, and you can get it here. The first show includes tunes from Fountains of Wayne, the Feeling, ELO and Jellyfish, among others – the music’s so good that you can just skip over Shore’s endless, “humorous” prattling and still have a good time. (Just kidding, Doc!)

Next week, we open the Neon Bible.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m pretty proud of my immune system. I identified with George Carlin when he did that routine about swimming in the septic tanks as a child, to toughen up the ol’ antibodies. My immune system, to put it mildly, kicks all kinds of ass, and to prove it, I haven’t been sick enough to miss a day of work in years.

But this week, some kind of mutant viral apocalypse thing wormed its way past my defenses (after two weeks of trying, mind you) and incapacitated me. I’ve been sneezing, coughing, blowing my nose, shivering and all-around aching since Tuesday, and it’s just not going away. I missed what amounted to two days of work this week, and I’m still on the long road to recovery. And I almost bailed out of writing the column this week, too, but I just couldn’t blow off that responsibility, too.

I will, however, try to keep it short. A few appetizers, a light meal, and then we’re done.

* * * * *

I don’t watch American Idol. To put it bluntly, I think it’s a disease, a horrifying sign of what the music business has become. They’re not looking for musicians on American Idol, they’re looking for malleable pop stars, people with good voices and no artistic ambition, people who will sing the songs presented to them and dance the choreography written for them and cash the checks and shut up. Not to get off on a rant or anything…

But this week, I actually found a reason to seek out Idol footage on YouTube. His name is Chris Sligh, and he’s a pudgy, bespectacled anti-star with a husky voice. He auditioned with Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose,” a song I admit to kind of liking, but that’s not what sent me scouring the web, hoping to find illegally reproduced portions of the show before YouTube’s crack legal team could discover them and purge them.

No, it was this – for his second song of the competition, Sligh chose Mute Math’s “Typical.”

Now, this isn’t the band’s best song, but give the boy credit – he pulled it off. And more importantly, millions of people got to hear a tune from one of the best new bands in many a moon, and from one of the best new albums of 2006. It’s the kind of exposure a band at their level could only dream of, and they didn’t have to pay a red cent for it. (Hell, considering the royalties, they got paid for it.)

And it was probably the only time in American Idol history that an actual, you know, good song was featured. I can only hope that some of the viewers were inspired to check their local record store (or iTunes) for Mute Math’s work. Kudos to Chris Sligh for his great taste, and for standing up for that taste on national television. I don’t watch, but if I did, I’d be rooting for him.

Oh, and one of Sligh’s competitors is named Sundance Head. So that’s kind of cool, too.

* * * * *

I used to get excited when Tori Amos would announce a new album. Seriously, I would lose sleep wondering what it would sound like, what melodic and emotional delights awaited me.

Now, I just kind of sigh heavily, and occasionally laugh. It’s sad, really.

Tori will return on May 1 with a new record called (I’m not making this up) American Doll Posse. And apparently, she has some vague memory of what it was like when she was actually shocking, when she would write elegant songs about masturbating with pages of the Bible. Those elements appear to be making a comeback on this new album, if the pre-release photo is any indication – it shows Amos in her Sunday best, standing outside a church with a Bible in one hand, the word “shame” written on the other, and a trickle of blood running from her leg.

Honestly, go look. It’s almost a parody of shocking. Sometimes I wonder if, after so many years of tuneless frittering, Amos can go back and reclaim the velvet punch of her first few albums. And then I see something like this, something that’s such an obvious and clumsy attempt to go backwards, and it just makes me hate myself for even wishing it.

But I’ll buy it, of course. And I’ll hope against hope that it’s actually good.

* * * * *

Quick Oscar predictions: It’s Martin Scorsese’s year. Even Susan Lucci won a damn daytime Emmy, and if Scorsese can’t win with his finest drama since Goodfellas, then he just can’t win. So here’s my breakdown:

Best Actor: Forest Whitaker.
Best Actress: Helen Mirren.
Best Supporting Actor: Mark Wahlberg.
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson.
Best Director: Martin Scorsese.
Best Original Screenplay: Babel.
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Departed.
Best Picture: The Departed.

Come back next week to see how I did.

* * * * *

I’ve been told by a few reliable sources that January 2007 was the worst January in the history of the music biz, as far as sales figures are concerned. While this is certainly sad news for my friends on the retail side of things, I’m more baffled by this than anything, and I think it shows the incredible disconnect between the music business and the actual music that’s being produced.

Because I’ll tell you this for free: the first two months of this year have been, musically speaking, amazing.

Here, I’ll throw out a few names for you. The Shins. Bloc Party. Of Montreal. Loney, Dear. The Apples in Stereo. Menomena. The Brothers Martin. All of these acts released great-to-fantastic records in January and February, and if the music business had any idea what to do with great stuff like Bloc Party or Menomena, they’d be million sellers. There’s no reason the Shins, at least, shouldn’t go platinum – it’s a record most people would like, if they’d only get to hear it.

So yeah, 2007’s on a roll, and it’s not likely to stop anytime soon. Case in point: the new one by Explosions in the Sky came out this week, and it’s beautiful stuff. It’s called All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, but behind that emo-tastic title is some of the most glorious instrumental rock music you’re likely to hear anywhere.

All of a Sudden is 43 minutes without one lyric, which may send some people screaming. But I’d be willing to bet that anyone who gives Explosions in the Sky a chance will hear what I hear in this music – a deep emotional center that gushes to the top like a geyser. This is also the most difficult kind of music for me to write about, since it simply has to be experienced. The old adage about dancing about architecture is absolutely true in this case.

Here’s what I can tell you. Explosions in the Sky is a quintet from Texas, consisting of two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer and a pianist. That sounds like a pretty normal, rock ‘n’ roll lineup, but this group utilizes that lineup to write and record soundtracks for dreams. The songs are lengthy excursions, with endless, aching crescendos that explode into furious, cathartic bliss. The twin guitars of Munaf Rayani and Mark Smith climb atop one another, intertwining and reaching for wondrous new heights, while the rhythm section grounds them as much as they can.

All of a Sudden, the band’s fourth, is very similar to their other three, but better. The sounds are more varied, and they make fuller use of Aaron Hochman’s piano, particularly on the painfully gorgeous “What Do You Go Home To.” The band occasionally lets it fly, the five of them crashing together into a cacophony of thunderous strength – see “Welcome, Ghosts” or the pulsing power of the opener, “The Birth and Death of the Day.” That song ebbs and flows masterfully, using its nearly eight minutes to take you somewhere and back.

But nowhere do Explosions in the Sky accomplish their mission better than on the 13-minute masterpiece “It’s Natural to Be Afraid.” The song starts off almost inaudibly, with backwards noises and a chiming clean guitar, which eventually makes way for delicate piano chords. Less than a minute in, and it’s already more beautiful and otherworldly than I can tell you, and it just gets better. The noisy background crescendos up from behind the fragile melody, overcoming it, before fading back to watch little guitar figures burst from the ground and blossom.

The music explodes and reforms several times over the course of the piece, finally building up to an astonishing eruption around the 11-minute mark, and it disintegrates from there, ending with the same lovely backwards sounds with which it began. It’s an amazing piece of work, possibly the best thing this band has done, and while you could chastise them for repeating their formula from record to record, this song shows just how far they’ve taken the sound, and how sweet the rewards of the journey have been.

All of a Sudden ends with “So Long, Lonesome,” its brevity (3:40) giving it the feeling of a coda. But it truly is the beautiful comedown, all pianos and unearthly guitar noises, and its melody is delightfully sad. There isn’t a wasted second on this album, and it plays like one cohesive piece, with peaks and valleys, each serving the whole.

But beyond that bout of theoretical claptrap, this album will move you like few other instrumental records will. With All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, Explosions in the Sky have crafted their finest work, but what makes it sing (metaphorically speaking) is the depth of feeling, the powerful emotional undertow that courses through every moment of this music. This is a band in search of beauty beyond words, and in the best moments on this album (meaning, basically, all of it), they find it.

* * * * *

Next week, I’m not sure. Still working on Zappa, though it doesn’t look likely that I’ll have that done in time. So it all depends on what shows up in the mail between now and then. But March 6 brings the flood, with new ones from the Arcade Fire, Blackfield, Bright Eyes, Lovedrug, Neal Morse and No More Kings. 2007 just keeps ‘em coming…

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The internet has changed everything.

I know, I know. Thanks, Captain Obvious. Any more brilliant insights for us?

But hear me out. I’m an old-fashioned guy, who does an old-fashioned thing at least once a week – I make a trip to the record store. And I buy CDs, those plastic discs that come in plastic cases with artwork and stuff, because I like having a physical object – music has no context for me without it. So you might say I’ve been resistant to the download revolution, only using iTunes when I have to, and never (well, almost never) downloading music for free.

And yet, the internet has still utterly changed how my musical obsession works. Here’s how it used to go: I’d walk into the music store on Tuesdays and browse, with only a vague idea of what albums would be released that week. I’d buy what I wanted from one store, then pop around to a couple of others to see if they stocked anything the first one didn’t. Very occasionally, I’d get to see an industry mag like Ice, and would furiously copy down album titles and release dates, but that was as close as I came to knowing what would be out when.

Working for a music magazine in the late ‘90s changed some of that – I got promos, and release lists, but still, the majority of my research was done on the phone or through the mail. But since then, my entire process has changed, and I don’t know if it’s for the better. I know more in advance now about my anticipated albums than I ever thought I would, but some of the fun and mystery is gone.

Anyway, here’s how it works now: I’ll scour some of the better sites for release information, visit the home pages of a few of the labels and bands that I know don’t report their releases to the portal sites, and compile a list. I know, usually up to five months in advance, when an album is set for release, what’s on it, what it sounds like, and how long it is. None of that information influences my decision to buy a record, you understand – it just informs my anticipation.

The art of the single release has completely changed as well. Used to be, a music junkie like myself would have to glue himself to the radio for hours to hear new songs. You could call in to the DJ and request new tunes, but you were still at their mercy. You could go buy the single (on 45rpm vinyl or cassette, natch), but you had no other way of hearing what your favorite band was up to before the album hit stores.

Not so anymore – most bands release songs months in advance of their albums, online for free. Some bands even put whole new albums up on their Myspace sites weeks before their release, citing the theory that if the music is good, giving it away won’t hamper sales. The world wide web has allowed lower-profile musicians like Jonathan Coulton to build fanbases by essentially giving free samples, and letting fans spread it around the net at will. In the old days, Coulton wouldn’t have had a chance without a label contract. Now, he’s an internet sensation.

This is all obvious, I know, but I still marvel at how this technology has altered the way I approach new music. 10 years ago, there was no such thing as an e-card, a promotional device record labels use to give a taste of a new album. And now, they’re everywhere, and they bring with them full songs – whole meals instead of little snacks.

Case in point: here is the e-card for Fountains of Wayne’s new album, Traffic and Weather, scheduled for release on April 3. That’s seven weeks away, and yet, the e-card offers an uncut stream of the first single, “Someone to Love.” And already, the song has reaffirmed my faith in the Fountaineers, and moved Traffic to near the top of my list of most anticipated records of 2007. Which is what a good e-card, and a good single, should do.

Of course, I was already excited, since FoW’s last album, the great Welcome Interstate Managers, made #3 on my 2003 top 10 list. Some people refer to Fountains as a guilty pleasure, but I just think of them as a witty, wonderful pop band. Their songs are unfailingly catchy and hummable, it’s true, but while many of them are silly (“Halley’s Waitress,” the hit “Stacy’s Mom”), many others sum up the sadness and ennui of modern life with grace (“Valley Winter Song,” “Hackensack”).

“Someone to Love” is, amazingly, both. It chugs along on a marvelous pop groove, and its chorus is little more than “a-ah, a-ah ahh” and the title phrase over and over, and it sparkles like the silly pop song it undoubtedly is. (The first 10 times I heard it, I felt compelled to sing along with every word. That impulse has passed somewhat, but I still can’t help myself from joining in on “magazine, aimed at teens.” Don’t know why.) The lyrics are littered with pop cultural references (Coldplay, The King of Queens), and the whole thing seems to be delivered with a smirk.

But look deeper, and you’ll see that FoW mainstays Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood have crafted a perfect parable of modern life. “Someone to Love” is the story of Seth Shapiro and Beth McKenzie, two young, single New Yorkers who can’t seem to find that special someone. They’re both professionals – Shapiro is a lawyer in the food industry, McKenzie a photo tech for a teen magazine – and their lives are simultaneously full and empty. And it’s obvious to everyone listening through verses one and two that they belong together, which makes the sucker punch in verse three (which I won’t ruin here) even funnier and sadder.

This is what FoW does best. In 100 years, when our turn-of-the-century civilization is long buried, researchers need look no further than Fountains of Wayne albums to find out what metropolitan life in the early ‘00s was really like. “Someone to Love” is a great song, and a good sign for Traffic and Weather. The track list holds other potential delights, with titles like “Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim” and (snicker) “Revolving Dora,” and given how good the first single is, I’m expecting a superb record here.

* * * * *

Of course, the more obscure you are, the more important internet promotion is. Some people consider Fountains of Wayne obscure, but hell, they’re on a major label, and they have two Grammy nominations under their belts. Plus, they play music that’s easy to promote – catchy, radio-ready pop. The net is helpful to a band like FoW, but not crucial.

That’s not the case with Joy Electric, Ronnie Martin’s one-man show on Tooth and Nail Records. For more than a decade, Martin has been making beautifully bizarre electronic pop, using nothing but vintage analog synthesizers. His material requires a total immersion, because it sounds like nothing else around – these are not techno-dance tunes, they’re fully fleshed-out pop songs (and often pop-punk songs, and just as often prog-rock songs) played on burbling synthesizers, and sung in Martin’s breathy whisper of a voice.

No one on the planet is doing quite what Ronnie Martin is doing, which means there’s no easy marketing niche he can fall into. All he can do is record his stuff and put it out there, and hope that the people who would enjoy it somehow find it. But the internet has made that crapshoot a thousand times more fruitful – Ronnie has a website and a Myspace site, and he makes good use of both.

Here’s the interesting thing: Martin could just continue doing what he does, over and over, but he’s a much more restless artist. If you don’t like synthesizers and dismiss their sound out of hand, you probably won’t hear it, but Martin’s music has evolved and grown over 10 full-lengths and half a dozen EPs, and he keeps evolving. His last one, The Ministry of Archers, debuted a new Moog-based sound over some of the most percussive tracks of his career. And his new one, The Otherly Opus, out March 20, apparently takes that sound and strips it down, with the focus this time on layer after layer of vocals.

You can hear what I mean on the Myspace site linked above – Martin has released “Red Will Dye These Snows of Silver” there, and it’s extraordinary. Vocals have always been Martin’s weak point, but later years have found him really growing into his voice, and using effects to bolster it. “Red Will Dye” is simply loaded with countermelodies, Martin’s voice weaving in and out of itself – those powerhouse “OH-OH”s are awesome, and the free-wheeling “Whoo!” before each chorus is splendid.

My only problem with this song is that it’s too short – I want to hear more of this new direction, and pronto. Martin has called The Otherly Opus “cursed,” but if the results are all as fascinating as this song, then the painful birthing process will have been worth it. This new Joy E still sounds like nothing else I’ve heard, but it also sounds like little else in Ronnie Martin’s catalog. Listen to 1994’s Melody, and then listen to this. You’ll be surprised it’s the same guy making all the sounds, both instrumental and vocal.

Martin’s music can be strange and off-putting at first – he’s constructed his own little universe, and established his own rules for it. But once you’re in, you’ll find his work fantastically rewarding. I’ve listened to “Red Will Dye These Snows of Silver” probably 25 times now (artificially inflating Martin’s numbers on his Myspace ticker – sorry, Ronnie!), and I’m not tired of it. On the contrary, I hear new things each time I spin it, and if the new record is all this dark and intricate, I expect I’ll find it as immersive as just about everything else Joy E has done.

* * * * *

So yeah, the internet has been a good thing for Ronnie Martin, but there is no band on Earth that has used the ‘net to its fullest potential like Marillion. This British quintet was one of the first bands to create a community around their website, and their amazingly loyal fanbase has enabled them to do things most bands can only dream of. Marillion has no record label but their own, and twice now their thousands upon thousands of fans have funded expensive recording projects by pre-ordering new albums before the band lays a single note down on tape.

Their last album, the double-disc Marbles, was paid for and promoted solely on pre-orders, and the fans sent its two singles into the UK top 20, a tremendous feat for a band with no big-label marketing. It’s doubly impressive since Marbles was an uncompromising masterpiece, a record full of slowly unfolding, moody pieces that take multiple listens to fully grasp. It’s difficult to say just what Marillion sounds like – they’re equally at home composing four-minute pop gems like “Don’t Hurt Yourself” and 18-minute multi-part epics like “Ocean Cloud.” But they are one of the great British rock bands, as evidenced by their longevity, and the depth of their catalog.

Their new album, Somewhere Else, is their 14th, and it’s out on April 9 in the UK. No pre-orders this time – the band apparently made enough money on the last two albums and tours to fund this one, which is good news. As usual, information about the record is slowly leaking out in advance, and this week, the single was sent to radio stations in Europe. It’s called “See It Like a Baby,” a title I instantly hated.

But here’s how much I love this band. I read on a message board that the single was in rotation on Morow, a progressive rock radio station. So I listened, for hours on end, waiting for it. Morow’s setup is such that you can only see what song is coming up next, not what songs are slated for hours down the road, so it was a process of wading through hours of widdly keyboard solos and Dungeons and Dragons lyrics to get to what I wanted to hear.

But I finally got there. I recorded it, and I’ve listened roughly 20 times since.

And you know, I really… don’t like it.

I’m trying, but “See It Like a Baby” just doesn’t captivate me. It’s nice – it floats along on some mellow electric piano and nifty bass, but the verses meander, the chorus is repetitive, and there isn’t much else, save for a good guitar solo. A decent bridge could have put this song over, or at least lifted it to the level of “Genie,” the weakest song on Marbles. Honestly, it’s a grower, but it still strikes me as a b-side, and my excitement for the album has been, unfortunately, a bit muted.

And here’s the flip side of all this advance information the internet has made possible – what do I do with this feeling? The album is still an agonizing eight weeks away, so I can’t tell if “Baby” is representative, or if it slots into the album nicely, or what. The problem with having this much info is that I want the rest, right now. There are clips of six other songs up on the band’s Myspace page, but none are long enough to give me a full impression – the album sounds more live-band and more rocking than Marbles, but that’s all I can tell.

It’s frustrating, and it’s almost enough to make me wish I hadn’t gone hunting for the little tidbits that are out there. As much as advance singles are interesting, I’m an albums guy through and through, and I want the context, the rest of the story, before I make up my mind. But I can’t have that, so I spin “Baby” over and over, trying to like it, and imagining what the rest of Somewhere Else might sound like.

I want to like it… I want to like it…

Anyway, it will be March 20 before I know whether Joy E maintained their standard of excellence, and April 3 before I get to hear what I hope will be 13 more pop gems from Fountains of Wayne, and then April 9 (plus a week for shipping from the UK) before I find out what’s happened to Marillion. And I plan to spend those weeks between playing the three singles again and again, and cursing the internet.

And, of course, finding out everything I can about records scheduled for May, June and July.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

As I’m sure most of you are aware, I’m a reporter at a local paper in a suburb of Chicago. That means I’ve spent the last two days (despite the date up top, I’m writing this on Feb. 16) researching, writing about and thinking about Thursday’s shooting at Northern Illinois University.

I don’t have a lot to say about this tragedy, except that my thoughts are with the families of the victims. And I’m glad to be given the opportunity through this column to think and write about something else for a little while.

* * * * *

I’m not sure why Glen Hansard isn’t a rock star.

As you may have guessed, I’ve recently caught up with most of the world in seeing (and absolutely loving) Once, John Carney’s love letter to music and its ability to connect people. Its star is Hansard, who also wrote or co-wrote all the songs, and he’s wonderful to watch. He plays a broken-hearted street musician in Dublin who meets a pretty Czech girl, writes some songs with her, records a demo, and then leaves for London to resume his life. That’s it, that’s the whole movie. But it’s magic.

The scene of real-life sweethearts Hansard and Marketa Irglova fumbling their way through “Falling Slowly” at a music store is one of the best bits of film I’ve seen this year. As a pianist who has backed up songwriting guitarists before, I can tell you this is exactly how it happens – Irglova, who actually co-wrote the song in question in real life, fumbles to find some countermelody that fits, and tries out a few harmony vocal lines. By the end, they’re soaring together, and the effect is incredibly moving.

It helps that the song is superb, as is every song in the movie. Hansard is the lead singer and guitarist for a band called the Frames, and after seeing the film, I bought a couple of their records. I’m not sure why they’re not more famous. Despite the Damien Rice-ness of a few of their tunes, they have an appealing sound, and Hansard’s voice is a delight. He has the look, the songs, the voice, the whole thing, so why isn’t this guy a star?

Beats me. But at the risk of jumping on a bandwagon long after it leaves the station, I highly recommend Once. It’s my favorite movie of 2007, edging out No Country for Old Men and Juno. I was expecting a romantic comedy with music in it, and what I got was a genuine, beautiful exploration of music itself, and what it means to two people in orbit around each other. Get the soundtrack, too – if nothing else, you’ll crack up at “Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy.” And if you have a heart, you’ll swoon for “Falling Slowly,” which had better win that damn Oscar next week.

* * * * *

Somehow, until earlier this week, I’d missed the biggest new release news of the month, at least in my little world.

Next Monday marks the U.K. unveiling of Join With Us, the second album by the Feeling. You may recall that I named Twelve Stops and Home, the band’s debut, my third-favorite album of 2006, praising up and down the sparkling, optimistic, nostalgic pop tunes that cover every inch of it. What I’ve heard of Join With Us sounds exactly the same as the debut, only bigger and more ambitious. I’m excited to hear the whole thing.

But then, I respond well to this type of thing, and many others don’t. It’s the usual purview of music critics to always look forward, to search for the next new thing. There is nothing cool or new about the Feeling – what you get with them, despite the soft-rock tag they’re often saddled with, is 40 years of British pop history put into a blender and served with a wink and a smile. Their music incorporates the Beatles, Paul McCartney’s solo stuff, 10cc, ELO, Supertramp, Queen, and a dozen other ‘60s and ‘70s acts I love.

I’m a big fan of the past, though, and I fear there’s a great danger, musically speaking, in losing our sense of history. I buy new music all the time, and I certainly wouldn’t want to give the impression that I reject the innovations of new bands, but they really knew how to write a song in the ‘60s, and I think many younger acts could learn a lot from looking to the past.

If there’s a criticism to be leveled at Twelve Stops and Home, it’s that it didn’t move things forward at all. It’s a pastiche without incorporating those influences into something more modern. That’s valid, although it doesn’t make the record itself any less enjoyable. Musical nostalgia can be a wonderful thing, if it’s done properly – see Sloan, or Jellyfish, or even some of Beck’s efforts. But if you see music as a movement, these bands didn’t contribute any momentum whatsoever.

The same criticism applies to Lenny Kravitz. Here’s a guy who has picked a window in time – basically 1965 to 1975 – and refuses to acknowledge that any music was made before or since. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. His first few albums are unassailable, especially the raw Are You Gonna Go My Way, but he’s been on a backslide lately, bottoming out with Baptism, 2004’s ode to how much Kravitz’ life sucks now that he’s a rock star.

That’s why it’s so good to hear him back in the saddle with his unfortunately-titled eighth album, It Is Time for a Love Revoution. This is the leanest ‘70s rock album Kravitz has made since Circus, and while nothing here is even remotely new or original, it does rock. Love Revolution features some of the most snarling guitar riffs in Kravitz’ canon, and some of his least cheesy ballads, and the result sounds like something pulled straight from Lester Bangs’ record collection. Kind of.

Believe it or not, despite the catchy rockers like “Bring it On” and “Love Love Love,” the highlights here are the slower songs. “A Long and Sad Goodbye” ranks with Kravitz’ best work, and the guitar solo that makes up the last two minutes is terrific. That’s not to say the foot-stompers are bad, though. I even like the loose “Dancin’ Til Dawn,” which brings in a rare outside musician, saxophonist Lenny Pickett, to add some organic ‘70s disco-funk feel. (Kravitz again played most of the instruments here, except for the odd guitar flourish and string arrangement.)

The problem with Love Revolution is the same one that’s dogged Kravitz for his whole career – he may actually be the worst lyricist in rock ‘n’ roll. Here is the opening from “Will You Marry Me,” just as a f’rinstance: “I want to do this thing, I don’t want no drama, mama, it’s love I bring, ooh.” Later he rhymes “passion” and “fashion” (as in “love never goes out of…”), and romances his girl with this couplet: “You are my favorite attraction, you give me real satisfaction.”

Here is the chorus to “Good Morning”: “Top of the morning to you, good morning to you, eh hey, oh oh oh oh oh, it’s another day in the world in which we live.” Seriously. I know most rock lyrics from the ‘70s were stupid, but Kravitz clearly has nothing to say, and gets by on the strength of his music and melodies. Which, admittedly, are quite strong on this album.

Well, there is one moment where the lyrics take the stage. Everyone and their sister is making a political statement about the war in Iraq these days, and Kravitz is no exception, although he waits until the final two tracks of Love Revolution to do so. “Back in Vietnam” is a sterling rocker, one that makes me think of Donald Rumsfeld’s famous quote, “I don’t do quagmires.” It’s saddled with terrible lyrics, of course (“We’re gonna fly over the world inside our giant eagle, we do just what we want and don’t care if it’s illegal”), but the point is clear.

Faring much better is the semi-fragile closer, “I Want to Go Home.” Sung from the point of view of a soldier who has lost his faith in the war, this song is the most poignant thing here, and Kravitz to his credit keeps it simple and sparse. It’s a good closer to the first Lenny Kravitz album in ages that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Kravitz spent three years writing songs for Love Revolution, and it shows – it’s his strongest set of tunes in 15 years.

Also returning with a surprisingly strong record is Sheryl Crow. For some reason, I can’t stop buying her albums – I haven’t unconditionally loved one yet, and I downright hated the last two. But the good stuff from her self-titled album and The Globe Sessions keep me coming back, I guess. I heard good things about Detours, Crow’s sixth album, so I bit the bullet once again. And finally, Crow has crafted an album that doesn’t immediately make me regret buying it.

Detours is no masterpiece, but in its best moments, it’s an old-time protest folk-rock record. It opens with “God Bless This Mess,” an acoustic ditty that references 9/11 and the Iraq war (“He led us as a nation into a war based on lies”). Within two minutes, you know where Crow stands, and what kind of political record you’re about to get.

What you may not expect is some of Crow’s most incisive songwriting. Single “Shine Over Babylon” is a slow burner about the cost of freedom, and it reads like (forgive me, rock gods) something Bob Dylan might write. Even better – brilliant, in fact – is “Gasoline,” a dystopian anthem set to a ‘60s Rolling Stones backbeat. It tells a tale of “way back” in 2017, when the world’s people finally riot over the price of gas. The song is the undisputed highlight of the record.

There are lowlights, too – quite a few, actually. “Love is Free” is too simple to live, and “Out of Our Heads” is just plain bad, its salsa-disco rhythm backfiring in the worst way. “If we could only get out of our heads and into our hearts” is a lamer chorus than anything Kravitz has come up with. (The fact that it follows “Gasoline” isn’t in its favor, either.)

In the album’s second half, Crow abandons the protest songs for reveries on her failed romance with Lance Armstrong, and the worst of those – “Diamond Ring,” “Now That You’re Gone” – drag this album down. Returning producer Bill Bottrell has given this record an appealing rough edge, but he’s also segued all of the tracks, so it plays like one continuous thought. In that context, it’s harder to ignore the lousy tracks.

But like Kravitz’ album, Detours ends well. “Love is All There Is” takes a sweet George Harrison-style melody (and guitar sound) and weaves a fine mid-tempo pop song out of it. And the closer, “Lullaby for Wyatt,” could have been a sappy ode to Crow’s son, but instead, it’s a clear-eyed look at the joys and pains of parenting. (“I could shape your mind, but why waste my time, my dear, there’s so much more to know than I can show you…”) The last couple of tracks are so good that they wash away the worst bits of the album, and leave a good impression.

So yeah, Detours doesn’t totally suck. And it does have a strong sense of history wrapped up in its protest anthems and ‘70s-style rock songs. I suppose I’ll buy the next one too. Dammit.

But enough about bands that draw from influences before I was born. How about this – one of my bands, from when I was a kid, is back with a new record that tries to recapture their old sound. It’s nostalgic, but for a specific sound and time that few are trying to relive, and for that, I kind of love it. I remember this sound, and it trips very specific memories in me. I can’t say this is a very good album, but it’s my favorite of the three.

I’m talking about the Hooters, who are back after 15 years with Time Stand Still. And for me, it does just what the title promises.

Remember the Hooters? They made a few popular records in the ‘80s, had a few hits (“And We Danced,” “All You Zombies,” “Johnny B.”), disappeared under the weight of their most ambitious and least successful album (1989’s Zig Zag), and no one really missed them. Most people overlooked the unique qualities of the band – they play a million different instruments, from mandolins to zithers to pennywhistles to Hohner hooters (natch), and they can turn any mainstream-sounding rock tune into a folksy jig. Most just think of them as an ‘80s corporate rock band, and I can’t really figure that out. They’re competent and professional, of course, but they’re so much more creative than that.

While I liked Nervous Night and One Way Home, I loved Zig Zag. The acoustic stomp of “Deliver Me,” the lovely mandolin-and-synth lament “Heaven Laughs,” the on-the-nose protest “Give the Music Back,” the left-field half-reggae cover of “500 Miles,” I loved it all. This was unlike anything on the radio at the time, so it’s not a big surprise that it didn’t chart. Their subsequent stab at mainstream rock success, Out of Body, wasn’t very good and didn’t put them back in the spotlight, and I figured that was it. Like so many other bands I loved as a kid, they made their best record and faded out.

Hooters mainstays Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman did okay for themselves, though. Bazilian is probably still collecting checks for writing “One of Us,” Joan Osborne’s big 1995 hit, and Hyman is likely best known as the writer of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” Hyman’s also worked with artists as diverse as Ricky Martin and Dar Williams.

But now here’s Time Stand Still, an album which fulfills the Hooters’ mission better than any save Zig Zag. In the decade and a half between Hooters albums, their propensity to tear down genre walls has become a lot more accepted, and this album has some of the group’s best rock-folk-jig-reggae mixes yet. The clever thing is, if you’re not listening closely, it’s easy to dismiss this album as a bunch of middling rock songs. But just about every song has a Hooters-style twist to it.

Opener “I’m Alive” coasts on a melodica melody and a crunching guitar part, matched and exceeded by the title track, its mandolin riff anchoring and buoying it. The band does a cover of Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer,” and I was initially wary – I’ve heard that song way too many times to enjoy it. But they do a smashing job Hooters-ing it up, and the middle section, all accordion and recorder, is pretty great. So they accomplished the impossible by track three – they got me to like “The Boys of Summer.”

The rest of the record is good, but not great. “Until You Dare” (originally on Bazilian’s solo album The Optimist) is a bit of a cheesy ballad, pleasant as it is, and “Morning Buzz” gets by on its mandolin-fueled verses before crashing on the rocks at the chorus. But I love “Where the Wind May Blow,” the most compact mix of rock and folk here. In fact, this song is the quintessential Hooters track, showing off what they do better than anything else here.

The rest? The rest is very good, including the sea shanty “Catch of the Day,” the sweet “Ordinary Lives” and the lengthy “Free Again.” The bonus track, “White Jeans,” is a swell addition, a paean to bygone years set to a thumping beat. It’s only here that the Hooters betray any sense that they’re an old band looking back on their glory days, but they do it with a wink. I’m very glad to have this album, even if praising it damages my credibility in critical circles. There’s just something about this band that gets me every time I hear them.

Was music better back then? Was it better in the ‘60s and ‘70s? There’s a good argument to be made there, especially considering how awful most of the crap on the radio is these days. But unlike the ‘60s and ‘70s, the best stuff is under the radar these days. There are still bands pushing music forward while learning from its past. You just have to dig to find them. But it’s always worth it.

Next week, yet another gaze backwards into music history with the Feeling. Also coming up are new ones from Mike Doughty, Ray Davies, American Music Club, Richard Julian and the Black Crowes. It’s a good time to be alive.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Back when I was young enough to watch Sesame Street, they used to run segments designed to help kids learn words in Spanish. (They probably still do, but I haven’t seen the Street in more than a decade, and it was better before everyone could see Snuffy anyway.)

And one of those segments, which I vividly remember, was a crude animation of a guy crawling on his stomach through a vast, empty desert. You could tell it was hotter than hell for that guy because the animators had drawn in huge, unmistakable beads of sweat that were flying off of his head. (I could be wrong about this part – it’s been a long time. But that’s how I remember it.)

And as that guy inched along, no doubt burning the skin he scraped against the blistering sand, he repeated one word, over and over again:

“Agua! Agua!”

That, metaphorically speaking, is what January is normally like for me as an obsessive music fan. Absolutely nothing comes out in January, and ordinarily, nothing comes out in February, either. It’s a dry, deserted wasteland of post-Christmas apathy for the music biz. The mainstream stuff doesn’t bother with the early part of the year, since the Grammy cutoff is in the fall, and the indie stuff usually clears a path, though what they’re clearing it for is anyone’s guess. The field is left to high-profile rap releases and tumbleweeds.

Of course, that’s in most ordinary years, and 2007 is already looking like it won’t be an ordinary year. I can’t recall ever spending as much money in the record store in January as I did this year, and February kicked off with a nice couple of weeks as well. And astoundingly, just about everything I picked up has either lived up to my expectations, or wildly exceeded them.

Last week, for example, saw the new Bloc Party, called A Weekend in the City. I dropped the ball on this English band’s superb debut, Silent Alarm – by the time I caught on, it was too late, which is the story of my life. I’m just glad I did catch on, because Silent Alarm is extraordinary, a mix of angular, almost new-wave guitars with U2’s passion for sky-high choruses and depth of feeling.

City is even better, and what is it with these British bands who’ve never heard of the sophomore slump? Don’t they know they’re supposed to wait until the third album to truly find their sound and knock one out of the park? Bloc Party didn’t get that particular memo – City is bigger, grander, and more purposeful than the debut, pulling in a healthy Radiohead influence (but only from the good stuff, not the asinine post-OK Computer period), and matching it with more considered compositions.

Of course, the result is a somewhat quieter and more textured album, which some may find off-putting. It shimmers to life with “Song for Clay (Disappear Here),” which finds lead singer Kele Okereke sighing in a breathy falsetto. But don’t worry, those fast-paced, explosive drums kick in about a minute into it, supporting a jagged riff from hell.

It doesn’t last – the album quivers more than it shakes, especially in its more delicate second half. “Where is Home” is like a great lost Cure song, all synth beds, pounding drums and Okereke’s pleading voice. “Kreuzberg” is a masterpiece of chiming guitars and gorgeous vocals, taking on U2’s sense of drama and dynamics. And closer “SRXT” will break your heart with its fragile melancholy, leading to a powerful choir-drenched middle section, and then fluttering away on droplets of guitar and glockenspiel.

Through it all, Bloc Party have grown more experimental, more adventurous. There are some obvious Jonny Greenwood-isms all over this record, but there are just as many moments of pure inspiration, and it’s all so confident, taking your hand and guiding you from one end to the other. This is an excellent album, and it makes me all but certain that one day, Bloc Party will make a brilliant one.

Also taking a more experimental tack is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, even though they’re not as talented, and their second record is not quite the stunner Bloc Party’s is. If you know Clap Your Hands, you likely have heard the hype surrounding their unorthodox approach to the music biz – they achieved fame through the Internet first, and they steadfastly refuse to kowtow to label politics, preferring to release their work themselves.

But such DIY attitude hasn’t extended to their music this time. On the first record, they were scrappy and earthy, bleating out repetitive rock songs with little more than energy to keep them afloat. But on Some Loud Thunder, their sophomore effort, they enlisted Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann and grew some ambition. For the most part, it pays off, even though here and there the band can be heard drowning in the new sounds that surround them.

For one thing, Alec Ounsworth has a voice that’s built for chugging indie rock – imagine a less controlled David Byrne, slipping and sliding all over the notes he’s trying to hit. When that voice is supported by more expansive instrumentation, it sounds out of place. I should mention, though, that the exception to this rule is the great “Love Song No. 7,” a melancholy wonder that fits Ounsworth’s swooping sighs perfectly.

For another, sometimes the production just gets away from them. The title track, which unfortunately leads off the album, is mixed with all the levels in the red, and it’s a painful experience. The Dylan-esque “Mama Won’t You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning” almost collapses under its own weight by the end, and “Underwater (You and Me)” could have used one of the debut’s more stripped-down arrangements.

But Clap Your Hands win serious points for musical bravery – one thing you won’t hear on this album is the typical two-chord rock that fueled their debut. Like Bloc Party, they let the Radiohead influences out here, but they also whip out fucked-up acoustic blues (“Arm and Hammer”), drunken 6/8 balladry (“Yankee Go Home”) and, in “Satan Said Dance,” one of the campiest and most fun freak-outs in recent memory.

Come to think of it, I give the band infinite credit for sinking tons of money into this album, making a major-label-style sophomore record, and then keeping it for themselves, and self-releasing it. But I also think that in reaching for new musical styles and thicker production, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have just highlighted their shortcomings. Some Loud Thunder isn’t bad, and it is an unexpected direction for this band to go, but it doesn’t build on the strengths of the debut. In fact, it all but ignores them, and the record suffers from a lack of energy because of it.

The same criticism cannot be leveled at the Apples in Stereo, who find just the right blend of goofy rock and shiny production on their latest, New Magnetic Wonder. Of course, they’ve had some time to perfect it – Wonder is the band’s sixth full-length in 12 years, and perhaps the most successful piece of work Robert Schneider and company have released.

It’s essentially 14 songs and 10 interludes, and the interludes only make up about six minutes of this thing, but take them out and the album sounds incomplete. This record is super-fun, from its emulation of 1970s guitar rock to its disco-era vocal effects to the heavy helping of Electric Light Orchestra influence that’s slathered all over it, and even though at 52 minutes it’s the longest Apples album to date, it’s over before you know it.

The album kicks off with tone-setter “Can You Feel It,” a glorious explosion of Cars-like rhythms and Jeff Lynne-inspired vocal layering. It’s probably the most fun I’ve had listening to music this year so far, and will probably keep that crown until Fountains of Wayne’s Traffic and Weather comes out in April. The album doesn’t flag from there, splashing into rockers “Skyway” and “Energy” before ducking into Supertramp land with “Same Old Drag.”

Elsewhere, Schneider unveils his “non-Pythagorean” scale, which allows him to play notes between the 12 tones of the normal octave. But don’t worry, it won’t make your head hurt for long – the focus here is absolutely on ‘70s-inspired rock tunes that could have found their way to the airwaves in decades past. The album climaxes with “Beautiful Machine,” a four-part strings-and-horns indie-rock epic stretched over two tracks and nearly eight minutes, and even that remains light and fun for its whole running time.

The Apples in Stereo have never been about filling the world with angst, or delivering scathing indictments of the world around them. They’re about making fun, catchy tunes, and on New Magnetic Wonder, they’ve outdone themselves in that arena.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with opening a vein and bleeding all over your recording studio, which one-man-band Of Montreal does on its eighth album, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer. Of Montreal is (at least lately) just Kevin Barnes, and over time, his work has become more insular and electronic. But it has never failed to be melodic and catchy at the same time.

Hissing Fauna has been described as a concept piece, and it’s easy to see why – it opens with a series of singalong stompers, and you’d never know how bitter they all are unless you read the lyric sheet. In particular, “Gronlandic Edit” struts along on a funky bassline while Barnes takes on organized religion in a multi-layered (and fascinating) falsetto. The first six songs are danceable and hummable and full of sparking color.

That all changes with track seven, the 12-minute “The Past is a Grotesque Animal.” An endless rant slathered in synthesizers, it serves as the turning point of the record, and as a screeching veer into more venomous territory. The rest of the record follows suit, and grows angrier as it goes along – nothing after track six matches the bright bursts of the opening salvo. The stomping “She’s a Rejecter” contains this striking line: “There’s the girl that left me bitter, want to pay some other girl to just walk up to her and hit her…”

In all, Hissing Fauna is Barnes’ most emotionally naked album, taking his trademark juxtaposition of bouncy melodies and gloomy lyrics to new heights. Or new depths, depending on how you look at it. It’s a tough album to get through, but the closing track, the lighter-than-air “We Were Born the Mutants Again With Leafling,” makes struggling through the second half worth it. Barnes has crafted a challenging, powerful record here, and who knows how Of Montreal fans will take to it.

I also should mention that Hissing Fauna comes in one of my favorite packages of the year. I’m a fan of album art, and clever designs – it’s the kind of thing that sets real CDs apart from their context-free digital download counterparts. This album’s digipack unfolds like a flower, petal by petal, and the liner notes are on their own free-standing cardboard circle. The whole thing comes in a clear plastic sleeve that keeps all its pieces in place. It’s a great design.

But it’s not my favorite so far. That honor goes to Portland, Oregon’s Menomena, who drafted graphic novelist Craig Thompson (Blankets) to create the artwork for their second album, Friend and Foe.

I will not be able to describe this package to you – you simply have to see it. It involves a die-cut front cover card, through which you can see the art on the CD (or on the back panel, when the CD’s playing). There are eight different permutations of the cover, depending on how you fold it, and if you line the track numbers on the CD up with the holes in the cover, you get different designs for each song. There’s so much subtlety to the artwork that you could stare at it, shifting the CD and the cover over and over again, for hours and not catch everything.

With all that, you’d think the album would be crazy-experimental, but it’s not – Menomena make music using a looping program, taking turns writing and recording their parts over it while standing in a circle, but the results sound surprisingly like the work of a very talented rock band. Friend and Foe is more dense and subtle than the band’s debut, with pianos and sweet vocals and memorable melodies carrying the day.

Songs like “Boyscout’n” slither along on a creepy bed, with dynamic guitars and eruptive drums, and the variety of sound and structure belies the loop-based origins of these tunes. They get more spacey by the end, with closer “West” sounding like a transmission from a mental institution on Mars. Friend and Foe overall goes deeper, and as it trails off with an extended piano coda, it leaves you feeling more wistful than you may have expected.

If you’re looking for a follow-up to that delicate conclusion, can I suggest Swedish outfit Loney, Dear? I know you’ve traveled pretty far with me this week, but trust me when I tell you I’ve saved the best for last.

I first heard Loney, Dear in my wonderful record store, Kiss the Sky. The band’s fourth album, the repetitively titled Loney, Noir, arrived in promo form from Sub Pop Records, and the staff played it in the store. And I was swept away – this album is just fantastic.

Loney, Dear is the pseudonym of songwriter Emil Svanangen, and he constructs these glorious mini-epics in his home studio, overdubbing and overdubbing until he sounds like a cast of thousands. His songs are pretty delights, buoyed by strings and clarinets and millions of other little things, and topped by Svanangen’s high, clear voice. It’s feather-light stuff, but in the very best way – it fills the air around you and invites you to breathe it in.

Loney, Noir’s highlights are many, from the flutes-and-clarinets dance track “Hard Days 1, 2, 3, 4,” which makes tambourines and handclaps sound like magic, to the superb folksy glide of “Saturday Waits,” to the comparatively forlorn ballad “I Am the Odd One.” There’s nothing in these 33 minutes that hasn’t been lovingly crafted, and nothing that won’t make you fall in love with music again.

The album could have ended with the sad heartbeat of “The Meter Marks OK,” but thankfully, Svanangen decided to go with “And I Won’t Cause Anything at All,” a slowly building, pulsing, saxophone-inflected beauty of a track. It sounds for all the world like taillights drifting away in the distance, like a happy ending in progress. The song contains the slowest fade on the record, and you’ll find yourself grasping for every last tone and beat, hoping it doesn’t end.

Seriously, this is my discovery of the year thus far, a record of heartbreaking beauty. I hope Sub Pop finds it in them to re-release Svanangen’s first three albums, and I hope they’re as good as this one. And I hope he keeps them coming, because Loney, Noir is just a lovely little piece of work. I can recommend everything this week, especially the Bloc Party, Of Montreal and Apples in Stereo albums, but this one… this one, I’m going to treasure.

If this keeps up, 2007 will be an amazing year for music, and with new ones on the way from some of my favorite bands, including Marillion, Fountains of Wayne (hear the smashing first single “Someone to Love” here) and Wilco, I have nothing but hope for the next 10 months. Music, as the man said, is the best.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Progressive rock fans are fascinating.

The word “progressive” is in the name of the music they purport to love, and yet you’ve never seen a group of people so opposed to progress. If a piece of music isn’t complex enough, or is too pop, or contains too few keyboards, or doesn’t exactly ape 1970s Yes and Genesis, right down to the multi-part suites and serious-arty lyrics, prog fans will trash it.

Especially if that piece of music was made by a band that formerly adhered to all the silly rules. The last band to successfully change the prog-rock landscape was Dream Theater – they made it okay for classic metal and thrash influences to creep their way in. Since then, it’s been all about sounding like Close to the Edge, with a dash of Images and Words.

I’m being overly harsh, I know. But troll the Marillion message boards for half an hour, and you’ll see what I mean. Every new piece of music the band unveils gets picked apart, over-analyzed and stacked up against their previous works. They’re not grateful that this band has been around for 25 years and is still creating the best music they can, they’re outraged that that music doesn’t fit their ideas of what Marillion ought to sound like. It’s too poppy, it’s not poppy enough, there are too many drum loops, there are too few guitar solos, the songs aren’t long enough, and when the hell is Fish coming back, anyway?

It almost makes me wonder if these people like the band at all.

You want another good example? Pain of Salvation. Who are they? PoS is a Swedish band led by a mad genius named Daniel Gildenlow, and lately, they’ve been the target of the prognoscenti.

Gildenlow used to be the golden child – his band’s first four albums followed the prog-metal formula set up by Dream Theater and the like, with staccato rhythms, wailing solos and sweetly melodic passages. Their records are all concept pieces, and to be fair, they’re all excellent, for what they are, especially 2000’s The Perfect Element Part 1. But let’s be honest, it’s a formula. Even DT has become depressingly formulaic – here’s the thunderous metal song with the three-minute guitar solo, here’s the ballad with lush keyboards, here’s the 15-minute epic song with six parts, all delineated by Roman numerals.

So you’d think that any attempt to break out of that rut would be seen as, y’know, kind of progressive, but that’s not the case with Marillion, and it’s not the case with PoS. In 2004, Gildenlow debuted his masterpiece, an album called Be. It’s not so much an album as it is a thesis statement on God and man, full of soundscapes and dialogue, but also full of two dozen musical styles that PoS has never tried before.

Here is “Nauticus,” a lovely low gospel moan. Here is “Pluvius Aestivus,” a gorgeous piano instrumental. Here is “Imago,” a shimmering folk song. And best of all, here is “Vocari Dei,” a collage of answering machine messages to God that, honest, is astonishingly moving. The old PoS style crops up here and there (“Diffidentia”), but the overwhelming majority of this album is a grand exploration of new musical forms, constructed as God would hear them – all at once. The record takes a few listens to absorb, but once it takes hold, it’s amazing.

And it was crucified by the fans. Not enough music, some claimed, as if things like “Nauticus” and “Omni” didn’t count.

There’s certainly a lot of music on Scarsick, the just-released follow-up to Be, but there’s also another dozen things that will send (and have sent) the gatekeepers of prog into a tizzy. Scarsick, at first glance, seems to be a return to the old style, with 10 heavy songs over 68 minutes, but take a look at drummer Johan Langell’s expression on the back cover photo – they’re not serious this time. And as any prog fan can tell you, not maintaining an air of absolute gravity at all times is a cardinal sin. (Not to keep bringing up Marillion, but see the reaction to “Cannibal Surf Babe,” or “Hope for the Future.”)

In addition, this record shows that PoS has not, and cannot, forget the lessons learned while making Be. Even the departure of guitarist Kristoffer Gildenlow (Daniel’s brother) can’t dull the band’s newfound experimentalism – they’re letting everything in, and no style is unacceptable. The first two tracks (“Scarsick” and “Spitfall”) show off a rap-metal influence, but this isn’t Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park – these guys are fantastic on their instruments, even when grinding out a punishing, repetitive groove, and the choruses are unfailingly melodic. “Spitfall” may be the finest rap-metal song I’ve ever heard, in fact.

But that’s it for what I feared would be an album-long stylistic switch, as the band moves on to anthemic balladry with “Cribcaged.” By this point on the album, a theme begins to emerge – Scarsick is about America, and modern society, and about being angry at both. “The only cribs we should care for are the ones we are here for, the ones belonging to our children,” Gildenlow sings, taking aim at the MTV generation. The second half of the song is a list of things Gildenlow can do without, and despite the sweet music behind him, he’s not gentle about it: “Fuck the million-dollar kitchen, fuck the Al Pacino posters, fuck the drugs, the gold, the strip poles, fuck the homies, fuck the poses…”

That’s nothing compared with “America,” the flashy hoedown psycho-pop song that follows, during which Gildenlow savages El Presidente Bush and his empire. His dismissive “It could have been great, America” speaks volumes, and the song itself is a superb ride, complete with banjos and pedal steel guitars one second and a Faith No More vibe the next. It’s awesome, but it’s in no way prog-metal, so guess what: the fans hate it.

And if you think that song raises their bile, you should see what they’re saying on the message boards about “Disco Queen,” the eight-minute monster that closes out the first half. The song exists in some imagined halfway point between Tool and the Bee Gees, catapulting from creepy to danceable in a heartbeat. Over its running time, “Disco Queen” morphs into an ever-building symphony of rage, then trips backward into its Saturday Night Fever coda. The lyrics to the chorus are, “Disco Queen, let’s disco.” Honestly.

It’s the best damn song on the record, and the more serious second half can hardly compete. But give it time to sink in, and side two turns out to be marvelous. “Kingdom of Loss” is another look at the wasteland of modern life, this one half-spoken over some of the most lilting, melodic music Gildenlow has written. “Mrs. Modern Mother Mary” has a hint of late-period Queensryche, while “Idiocracy” brings back the Tool influence, adding synth atmospheres and what sounds to me like a mandolin.

And “Flame to the Moth,” the album’s one screamer, carries the record’s theme forward: “We once had blue eyes, probing the skies, now they are blackened from this modern life…” The song ends with one of the disc’s most haunting passages – all goes to piano, as Gildenlow sings defiantly, “When you bow your heads tomorrow at the world we built today, I want you to remember that I stood my ground and said no…”

Scarsick concludes with “Enter Rain,” 10 minutes of trance-like melancholy that find Gildenlow pleading for rain to come and wash away the scars of the last nine songs. The inner spine tells me that this album is supposed to be part two of The Perfect Element, though I’ve heard that this and the next two will actually make up the sequel. Even so, I can’t see many connections between the former Element and this one, and Scarsick develops its themes well enough to stand on its own as an indictment of modern society, complete with mock-ups and tributes to the music of these wasted times.

So why are people hating it? I’m not sure. It’s true that this album is not as painstakingly crafted or mind-bogglingly complex as some of the band’s earlier works, but it is hundreds of times more interesting for its diversity and its willingness to take chances. More importantly, Scarsick shows Pain of Salvation as a band that continues to evolve, shattering their own formulas and refusing to be what they’re “supposed” to be. And I ask you – is there anything that deserves the term “progressive” more than that?

Next week, who knows, but probably Of Montreal, Menomena, the Apples in Stereo and/or Loney, Dear. And if you’re asking yourself just who any of those bands are, trust that I did too, in some cases, and that you’ll want to tune in.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Well, that was fast. Ladies and gentlemen, the first great album of 2007: Wincing the Night Away, by the Shins.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this album. The Shins’ 2001 debut, Oh, Inverted World, cast them as an indie band in love with the melodies of Brian Wilson, and while some songs felt incomplete, several of them were brilliant. The whole thing gave off a warm air of charming cheapness, like if the teenage Beach Boys made a record for $50. And World includes “Girl Inform Me,” which I honestly consider one of the finest pop songs of the last 20 years.

But when it came time to follow it up, the Shins nose-dived. 2003’s Chutes Too Narrow improved the sound and production quality somewhat, but tanked when it came to memorable songs. Only a few, like “So Says I” and “Saint Simon,” really took off, and the reliance on acoustic guitars only added to the feeling that Chutes was a rushed, homespun knockoff. Listening back to it this week, I was struck anew by just how average it all is.

But maybe that’s only in comparison, since Wincing the Night Away is by no means average. The band took nearly three and a half years to craft this thing, and it shows – the sound is massive and layered and expensive-sounding. Many have already taken that as a cue to write the Shins off as sell-outs, and that’s a shame, because this album sports the best, most consistent set of songs James Mercer has ever written. It’s true that Natalie Portman’s character from Garden State probably wouldn’t find this one life-changing, but that’s her loss.

Wincing opens quietly, with shimmering keyboards and Mercer’s quivering vocal, but before long “Sleeping Lessons” explodes into quick-time guitar rock, and we’re off. The album is a series of interlocking moods, and takes you through half a dozen different atmospheres in 40 minutes. But don’t worry – about half these tracks sound like the Shins, and the band is smart enough to alternate their more experimental moments with the pure melodic pop they do best. When Mercer is on, he writes some fine vocal melodies, pinching Brian Wilson’s tendency to take the vocal line places you wouldn’t expect.

Take “Australia,” for example. It’s the first out-of-the-park smash on the album, based around a delightfully loping bass line and a jangly guitar part. But it’s that vocal melody, that cascading, looping, rising tune that takes you by the hand and leads you, moment by moment, through the whole song. Other elements become little tourist attractions – look left, kids, there’s a banjo in the pre-chorus! – as Mercer’s voice guides you. It’s the kind of thing more bands could stand to learn, and what really sets Mercer apart.

Check out “Phantom Limb,” the first single, for another killer melody line, this one so very Brian Wilson. (Hey, if you’re going to wear your influences on your sleeve, you may as well be influenced by the best.) The song itself is surprisingly simple, but the soaring vocal line captures your attention, and the extended “whoa-oh” coda is terrific. Wincing the Night Away contains the longest songs Mercer has written, but none wear out their welcome – they’re too focused on blindingly great melodies for that.

But just as you’re getting ready for another seven sweet pop songs, the Shins pull the rug out. “Sealegs” sounds like a lot of bands, but none of them are the Shins – it’s based on an almost Beck-like beat, slinky bass figure and acoustic staccato, over which Mercer unveils yet another restless melody line. This song’s almost mechanical sound and shivering strings take a few moments to get used to, but the song works. “Red Rabbits,” which follows right after, sets an ambient mood with chiming, plonking keyboards, then adds sweeping strings and some reverbed electric guitar, and the overall effect is like swimming underwater. But it, too, works amazingly well.

And so it goes through the second half – “Turn On Me” is classic Shins, all ringing guitars and hummable melody, while its immediate successor, “Black Wave,” is a dazzling experiment in mood and texture. Through it all, Mercer only stumbles once, on the Shins-by-numbers “Girl Sailor,” and even that is not half bad. The album closes with one of the prettiest songs to spring from Mercer’s pen, “A Comet Appears.” With a circular guitar figure setting the scene, Mercer pours his little heart out: “The lonely are such delicate things,” he sings, while the music strives for that same delicateness. It leaves you with a feeling like warm summer nights, watching the sun slowly fade.

What else can be said? The Shins not only brought it all together for this record, they launched themselves into some new directions, and refused to settle for emulating those new influences without fully assimilating them. Wincing the Night Away is a beautiful, nearly completely successful record, and while some will whine about the loss of indie sparkle that comes with the more polished sheen, the songs win the day. It may have taken Mercer and company more than three years to put this album together, but from the available evidence, it seems they didn’t waste a day.

* * * * *

When I made the trek to the record store to buy Wincing the Night Away, I knew I was going to also pick up The Brothers Martin. While the rest of the world has been anticipating the Shins album, I’ve been quietly waiting for this collaboration between two of my favorite little-known songwriters.

Long-time readers probably know who the Martins are. Jason is the voice and guitar of Starflyer 59, and he’s been turning out one spunky, jagged rock record after another for 13 years. Brother Ronnie is the mastermind behind Joy Electric, and he’s been painstakingly crafting his blipping, beautiful synth-pop for nearly as long. Between the two of them, they’ve made more than 30 records, with more on the way and no plans to stop.

But what you may not know is that Ronnie and Jason were in a band called Dance House Children together, long before SF59 and Joy E (and even their longtime label, Tooth and Nail). DHC sounded like early Joy E, all programmed synthesizers and fluttery vocals, with the added treat of Jason’s guitar, deep and reverbed and thick as a mountain even then. The pair split in 1992, but they’ve been promising to reunite for some kind of project ever since.

And here it is – The Brothers Martin is 34 minutes of angular pop music, performed in an interesting and near-equal mix of Ronnie’s and Jason’s styles. The brothers split songwriting and singing duties right down the middle, and though Jason plays guitar and bass while Ronnie does everything else on his analog synths, the sound is much more representative of both. This isn’t Dance House Children, but it’s not Starflyer 59 with disco beats either.

Admittedly, some tunes, like Ronnie’s “Fears to Remember,” are more Joy E, with their ‘80s new-wave synth bass lines. And some, like Jason’s “The Plot That Weaves,” are more SF59, with real drums by Alex Albert and a strong electric guitar focus. But the best of these songs form a whole new amalgam. Take “Opportunities,” for example – a very Jason Martin song, but weaving in and out of the Cure-like guitar figures is Ronnie, providing the bass bed and swooping up with his synth leads. Opener “Communication” does the same thing, but gives Ronnie a chance to sing a pounding rocker, something he rarely gets to do.

Oddly enough, though, my favorite of these tracks is a genuine experiment. “The Missionary” is a Jason Martin song, one that sounds as though it was written for his trademark thunderous guitar. But instead, Ronnie has sculpted this song into a synth-rock masterpiece, one that revels in its own cheesiness. You can just see the goofy grin on Ronnie’s face as he plays the power-chord guitar line on his keys, making his own kind of rock music. It’s just great.

Overall, fans of either Martin brother will find much to love here, but fans of both will be in heaven. The Brothers Martin contains 10 solid, strong songs, and a fully collaborative spirit between Jason and Ronnie. It was worth the wait, and it stands as the best project they’ve done together. For Ronnie Martin fans, the year’s just beginning – he releases both The Otherly Opus and its companion EP, Icicle Streusel, in March. Nothing’s been announced from Jason’s camp, but I’d be surprised if SF59 didn’t have something new by the end of the year.

Until then, though, The Brothers Martin will more than tide you over. Despite their prolific natures and their track records, the Martins remain obscure, and a listen through this collaborative platter will have you wondering why.

* * * * *

What I didn’t know when I trundled out to the music store was that I’d also come home with Carey Ott’s Lucid Dream. Hell, I didn’t even know it existed.

About five years ago, I saw Chicago-area band Torben Floor open up for Phantom Planet. They quite simply owned the room from moment one, and the stars of the show were the songs of lead singer Carey Ott. I bought their full-length debut, Matinee, that same year, and have included songs like “Midwest Distress” on mix CDs ever since. But the band disappeared – I heard hide nor hair of them since 2002.

But lo and behold, here is Ott’s debut solo album, self-released last year but finally receiving national distribution on Dualtone this month. Ott has a great voice and a way with a melody, and though Lucid Dream doesn’t rock as hard as Torben Floor did, it does collect 11 swell new songs (as well as a new version of his old band’s semi-hit “Sunbathing”). In general, think Rufus Wainwright singing for Travis, and you’re on the right track.

Lucid Dream is a lot more acoustic and intimate than Matinee was, and the shift takes a few listens to get used to. But once you’re in, Ott’s low-key charm will work its magic. “Hard to Change” has hints of Neil Finn, and “Mother Madam” is almost a Paul McCartney impression, but overall, Ott delivers a set of fine, pleasing pop-rock, with some memorable melodies.

Nothing here is as stunningly excellent as “Sleep Too Much,” the hidden gem on Matinee, but even so, it’s nice to see such a talented, classically-informed songwriter still turning out the goods. Plus, apparently the first track here, “Am I Just One,” got featured on Grey’s Anatomy a couple of times, earning Ott some well-deserved publicity. Ott’s work is thoughtful and shimmering and often sad, and his album will appeal to anyone who likes British pop, or really anyone who likes good songwriting. Hearing his album was like reuniting with an old friend. Far from disappearing, Ott’s been hard at work, and it shows on Lucid Dream.

Check him out here

Next week, Scarsick, and maybe a couple of other things I picked up this week. Still working on Zappa…

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Well, it didn’t happen.

I wondered last week where I was going to find the time to finish my massive Frank Zappa buyer’s guide project, and as it turned out, I didn’t. I’m pretty far along, but not done, and I don’t want to post this in installments, as it’s going to be eight interconnected pages. It needs to debut all at once, and now I’m shooting for one of the barren weeks in February. There are a couple, so we’ll see if I can land this beast on one of them.

Of course, that leaves me with nothing to write about this week. Or it would have, if not for the internet. But thanks to this glorious series of tubes, I found a new musical obsession last Saturday, and his songs have become like old friends over the past seven days. I’m apparently really late to this party, but I’m glad I finally made my way there.

I’m talking about Jonathan Coulton. Or JoCo to his friends.

I was directed to Coulton’s website from a message board I frequent. I listened to three songs, and then plunked down my cash for everything the man’s ever done. And I’ll tell you, it was probably the best $70 I’ve spent in a while. Coulton is a witty writer with an ear for great melodies, and he combines the best parts of Barenaked Ladies (before they started to suck) and Fountains of Wayne, with a touch of Dr. Demento. His songs are geeky, funny, sad and triumphant, and they deserve to be heard on a wider stage.

Much of the press attention Coulton gets centers on his unique marketing methods. His website allows you to hear every song in full, and buy each one individually or as an album set. You can purchase CDs from Coulton, too, but one gets the sense that printing up physical discs is merely a concession to an old paradigm for him. He’s an internet artist through and through, and he releases everything under a Creative Commons license, which means that anyone else is free to use his material for their own projects, as long as they a) don’t make any money off of it, and b) they link back to his site.

So naturally, YouTube is full of homemade Jonathan Coulton videos, ranging from fully animated concept pieces to single-camera shots of people dancing. Coulton counts on this exposure to spread his name across the net, and as far as I can tell, it’s working wonders. He records his songs at home, using professional digital equipment, and then he releases them into the world, and watches the lives they live. And with each new video or podcast or what have you, more people hear his work, and more of them find their way to his site.

But that’s not the best of it. In September 2005, Coulton embarked on a year-long experiment he called Thing-a-Week. Basically, he recorded a song a week, and released each one as a podcast on Fridays, and he kept that up for a full year. By the end, Thing-a-Week became an internet sensation, and to hear him tell it, the experiment increased his audience considerably. I missed out on Thing-a-Week while it was happening, of course, but I can easily imagine racing home on Fridays to check for the new song. It’s a fascinating and very effective approach.

But you know what? I don’t want to talk about any of that. I want to talk about the songs, because they’re at the heart of the matter. And Coulton’s songs are the best kind of pop music – warm and funny and touching and simply bursting with ideas. Those ideas are often about monkeys and robots and zombies, but they are just as often about people orbiting around each other, and the interesting ways they interact.

Coulton’s first album, 2003’s Smoking Monkey, is hit or miss, and sometimes self-consciously silly, but it is a fun half-hour. It includes a couple of smirking winners, like “Ikea,” a They Might Be Giants-esque anthem to the world’s greatest discount store, and “First of May,” a sweet ode to… well, I don’t want to ruin that one if you haven’t heard it. But the record is weighed down by brick-subtle numbers like “Over There” and “I’m a Mason Now,” songs that pale in comparison to later efforts.

2004’s follow-up EP Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow is a huge improvement, taking Coulton’s melodic pop to geeky new heights. The first three songs are all classics – “The Future Soon” starts off as a tale of grade school embarrassment, but ends up being about robot wars in a far-flung decade, and “Skullcrusher Mountain” concerns an evil genius in love with his latest captive. (“I’m so into you, but I’m way too smart for you, even my henchmen think I’m crazy, I’m not surprised that you agree…”)

But it’s “I Crush Everything,” a sad ballad about a self-loathing giant squid, that fully establishes the Coulton style. You would never expect a song about a sea creature to move you, but this one will – Coulton manages to find the sadness, the desperation, and the humanity in his science fiction concepts, doing what all good sci-fi should do. Oh, and he composes heartbreaking melodies, too. I’ve had “I Crush Everything” stuck in my head a dozen times this week, and I’m not tired of it yet.

And then there is Thing-a-Week.

Coulton’s year-long endeavor is collected on four CDs, one for each season, with corresponding mini-vinyl-style sleeves, all packaged in a tin box. All 52 songs are here, with the exception of “When I’m 25 or 64,” a copyright-violating mash-up. And as a whole, it offers the most complete picture of Coulton’s particular brand of genius.

The best thing about Thing-a-Week, though, is that you can hear Coulton blossoming and maturing as a songwriter before your ears. The first volume is a mixed bag, with found-sound experiments like “W’s Duty” and “Sibling Rivalry,” novelty tunes like “Podsafe Christmas Song” and a folksy cover of “Baby Got Back.” (Okay, that last one is brilliant.) At track four is “Shop Vac,” the disc’s one undisputed keeper – it’s an exploration of suburban half-life, with an entire bridge about taking a left turn into Starbucks. But otherwise, Coulton’s warning about the relative quality of his Thing-a-Week material seems spot-on.

But a funny thing happened about halfway through Thing-a-Week Two: Coulton started taking this experiment as the challenge it was meant to be, and began turning out his best work. There’s “Chiron Beta Prime,” of course, a Christmas card from a family held captive by robots, but there is also “A Talk With George,” a deeper song about conversing with the ghost of George Plimpton, and there is the aforementioned “Re: Your Brains,” detailing a business meeting between a zombie and his victims. (Imagine the Misfits singing a ‘90s pop song after watching Office Space.) Mix in fine covers of Beatles and Rick Springfield songs, and an anthem for the unlikeliest of Olympic events (“Curl”), and you have a winner.

Here’s the thing, though – Coulton was just getting warmed up. Thing-a-Week Three and Thing-a-Week Four are superb pop records by any definition – the sound experiments are all but gone, the novelty tunes take a back seat, and in their place are song after song of melodic bliss, each one with its own high concept. The third volume includes “Code Monkey,” a should-be smash hit about a hapless software engineer in love. There’s also wimp-seduction ballad “Soft Rocked By Me” and kickass breakup song “Not About You,” but the highlight might be “When You Go,” an a cappella stunner.

Thing-a-Week Four contains “Creepy Doll,” his Danny Elfman-esque four-minute horror movie, but it also has hard-luck anthem “Big Bad World One,” sweet parenting song “You Ruined Everything,” and “Pull the String,” a psychodrama about secrets. And at track eight is one of the most perfect love songs in my collection, called “I’m Your Moon.” It’s a love letter to Pluto from its moon Charon, written shortly after Pluto was declassified as a planet, and it is defiantly beautiful: “I’m your moon, you’re my moon, we go round and round, from out here, it’s the rest of the world that looks so small, promise me you will always remember who you are…”

Coulton wrapped up Thing-a-Week last August with an unlikely cover of “We Will Rock You,” but he did it in a way that symbolized his connection with his fanbase. He asked his fans to record a single handclap and send it to him, and he assembled all those claps into the famous backbeat of the song. Then, naturally, he bluegrassed it up, and as an encore, he gave “We Are the Champions” a low-key arrangement, as if sung by a weary mountain climber surveying how far he’s come. It sounds strange, but it’s the perfect conclusion.

In the end, Coulton delivered a set of surprisingly warm and well-crafted songs, and it’s kind of amazing that he managed one of these a week. It’s also kind of amazing that he’s remained obscure, with a pen so prolific and witty. So here’s my attempt to spread the word: Go here to hear anything and everything he’s done, and then buy what you like. And then, tell a few people and send them to the site. Someone this good deserves all the support I can muster for him.

Some places to start:

“Ikea” and “First of May” off of Smoking Monkey.

“The Future Soon” and “I Crush Everything” off of Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow.

“Shop Vac” and “Baby Got Back” off of Thing-a-Week One.

“A Talk With George” and “Re: Your Brains” off of Thing-a-Week Two.

“Code Monkey” and “When You Go” off of Thing-a-Week Three.

“Big Bad World One” and “I’m Your Moon” off of Thing-a-Week Four.

Or, you know, just pick a song and start listening. I hope you like Coulton’s music as much as I do.

Next week, the Shins return with Wincing the Night Away, and as if that weren’t enough, we have the Brothers Martin album and the new Of Montreal, too. The following week sees Pain of Salvation’s already-controversial Scarsick and the second album from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

Also, Marillion announced the track listing for their 14th album, Somewhere Else, this week. The follow-up to the 100-minute Marbles is half that length and contains 10 songs, and one of them is “Faith,” a tune they’ve been playing live since 2003. Early reports compare the record to Afraid of Sunlight, which may be my favorite Marillion album, and “Faith” certainly fits in with that style – it’s a gorgeous acoustic song that should be a terrific closer. The album’s out on April 9, and I’m counting the days…

See you in line Tuesday morning.