This month’s connecting thread: grizzled veterans connect with high-powered talent from younger generations; the chemistry fizzes, fuses and pops — and some excellent new music is the result! (Of course, there’s an outlier or two in this month’s stack as well.) Let’s get down to it, shall we? Purchase links are embedded in the artist/title listing, with album streams or samples following the review.

Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks, True: Anderson (going on 80, and as seemingly immortal as Keith Richards) has consistently worked with little-known yet impeccable virtuosos since his abrupt exit from Yes; watching him front a high-impact big band from the 10th row in 2019 was a thrilling experience. Now, teaming with a quintet of killer players half his age, he delivers the album fans have desired for decades. Sure, there are times when The Band Geeks (bassist Richie Castellano, guitarist Andy Graziano, keyboardists Christopher Clark and Robert Kipp and drummer Andy Ascolese) seem a little too eager to ape their counterparts in the classic Yes lineup, but overall they lean into epics like “Counties and Countries” or “Once Upon a Dream” and shorter romps like “True Messenger”, “Shine On” and “Still a Friend” with full commitment, fresh creativity and chops galore. Then there’s Anderson, still soaring into sub-orbit with that unmistakable voice, still preaching peace, love and understanding with his trademark New Age word salads. (Is there no way this man could run for U.S. President? At this point, he’d get my vote.) At first, I thought Time Lord’s full review was a bit over the top — but repeated hearings are bringing me around. Most hardcore Yes-heads will flip over this, and casual listeners will find plenty to lure them in.

Tim Bowness, Powder Dry: the exception to this month’s rule, Bowness’ first-ever “solo solo project” hits the speakers like a cold slap in the face. Instead of the languorous widescreen ruminations of previous albums, we get brusque, sparse song sketches (rarely more than 3 minutes); a disorienting mix of natural tones, machine rhythms, bracing industrial grit and gnarled lo-fi samples yields shocks, disturbances and wake-up calls aplenty across these 16 tracks. Well practiced in the dark arts of ineffable yearning and melancholy, here Bowness hones and refines his lyrics to bare-knuckled, highly charged haikus, whether staring down decadent cultures (opener “Rock Hudson”), devolving psyches (“This Way Now”, the title track), disintegrating connections (“Heartbreak Notes”) or the unholy conjunction of all three (“Summer Turned”, “Built to Last”). With his stoic vocals bearing the brunt of this emotional tangle, Bowness’ voice plumbs fresh depths, flickering in desperate hope one moment, driven to sublimated fury and fear the next. If you’re already a Bowness fan, stow your expectations — but whether he’s familiar or brand new to you, don’t hesitate to strap in for a compelling, cathartic ride.

David Gilmour, Luck and Strange: another prog legend who can sound like nobody but himself cranks up one more time. But the canvass Gilmour paints on here accents different tones and tints, with youthful co-producer Charlie Andrew shaking up instrumental backgrounds and song formats to good effect. There’s a sense of lightness, air and space this time around, a less obviously Floydian palette that both complements and contrasts with Gilmour’s craggy singing and singular take on blues guitar. Polly Samson’s lyrics level up as well, tackling well-worn topics (nostalgia on “Luck and Strange”, spirituality on “A Single Spark”, love as refuge on “Dark and Velvet Nights” and “Sings”) from newly contemplative angles, sounding absolutely right coming out of Gilmour’s mouth. (Oh, and daughter Romany Gilmour totally enthralls in her vocal turn on The Montgolfier Brothers’ “Between Two Points”.) By the time Gilmour hearkens back to which one’s Pink, firing off a final round of Stratocaster fireworks on orchestral closer “Scattered”, he’s taken us on the most varied – and I’d argue, most sheerly enjoyable – ride of his solo career; this one’s already a 2024 Favorite.

King Crimson, Sheltering Skies: OK, so this one isn’t “new” new. But when Crimson sherpas Robert Fripp and Bill Bruford teamed with American upstarts Adrian Belew and Tony Levin back in the 1980s, the result was a revitalized second reign for the King, swapping out trademark Mellotrons and prodigious pomp for raucous noise, limber polyrhythms and surging, seething energy. With Belew and Levin now touring this music again as BEAT, this issue of a 1982 show previously released on video couldn’t come at a better time; opening for Roxy Music on the French Riviera, Crimson pulls the unsuspecting audience right into the clinches for the hottest of hot dates. From the subdued intensity of “Matte Kudasai” and “The Sheltering Sky” through the dynamic clatter of “Indiscipline” and the hypnotic guitar weave of “Neal and Jack and Me” to Bruford and Belew’s ecstatic percussion duet that kicks off “Waiting Man”, this is that rare live album of nothing but highlights. Banter, bicker, balderdash, brouhaha, ballyhoo — whatever their desired flavor of elephant talk (including some 70s throwbacks), Crim devotees will find it here.

Nick Lowe, Indoor Safari: almost 50 years on from his solo debut at the crest of the New Wave, Lowe’s pure pop for now people remains pin-sharp and on point. Who else can still pump out breezy rockers like “Went to A Party” and “Jet Pac Boomerang” (the latter complete with high-culture similes and a Fab easter egg), ring wry changes on the battle of the sexes in “Blue on Blue” (“You’re like a mill, you run me through”) and “Don’t Be Nice to Me”, then capture the emotional devastation of the quietly crooned “A Different Kind of Blue”? Masked surf-rockers Los Straitjackets (currently celebrating their 30th anniversary) prove crucial here, laying down swinging retro grooves for Lowe’s originals and hoisting just the right backdrops as he nails the blue-collar aspiration of Garnet Mimms “A Quiet Place” and the innocent romance of Ricky Nelson’s “Raincoat in the River”. Lowe’s smart-aleck satire has always entertained, but his later embrace of pre-rock stylings deepened his songwriting and singing; now, even at his jauntiest, his aim for the heart is true. This is a real charmer that’s gone straight onto my 2024 Favorites list.

Pure Reason Revolution, Coming Up to Consciousness: a variation in reverse of this month’s theme, as long-time Pink Floyd/Gilmour bassist Guy Pratt brings extra low-end oomph to the latest from Jon Courtney, Greg Jong and their fellow electroproggers. As Time Lord ably spells out in his full review, once again PRR relies on the proven recipe of previous high points like 2006 debut The Dark Third and 2022’s Above Cirrus: float in on low-key ambience, keep the verses chilled out, ramp up on the bridge, kick hard into the chorus! (While seasoning to taste with lush harmonies, towering guitar riffs and slamming club beats, whipping up maximum tension and release before serving.) Here the results are consistently yummy, not least because the soundscapes’ ebb and flow echo Courtney’s perennial lyrical themes. As Courtney, Jong and Annicke Shireen’s voices entwine, splinter, and reunite, there’s a serene insistence on transfiguration, on something more than material, beyond the harsh realities of eros (“Dig til You Die”, “Betrayal”), fear (“The Gallows”), and death itself (“Useless Animal”, “As We Disappear”). Pure Reason Revolution isn’t giving us answers, but Coming Up to Consciousness points us toward the mystery they’ve pursued all along.

— Rick Krueger