It just came out today (the 27th). What astounds me about this band is that they're always finding ways to improve in areas where I thought there WAS no room for improvement.

Revisions is a collection of older songs by the band with the number for a name, and given a revamp, hence the album's title. The songs range in birthing age from 1998 to 2006, and most of them had never seen an official album release before now, previously being only available in very old demo form, some of them even only previously available on bootlegged live recordings you could find in the folds of the Internet.

Revisions is a true gem of an album, especially in today's saturated and largely unoriginal market of music. From the melodies to the lyrics to the musicianship to presentation, this is an album very much worthy of being called great.

I'll now give you the exerpt from 3 themselves from Revisions' liner notes:

"3 has always been a band apart. We've never been afraid to follow the artistic impulse. Whether it has lead us to genre bending progressive experimentation, or, as in the case of Revisions, drawn us into a world defined more by melody and lyric than by instrumental prowess. This collection taps the rich history of 3 by reexamining some of the earlier songs that made us who we are today. Some of them are known from early live bootlegs, others existed only on cassette and were transferred to the internet by dedicated fans. In any event, these are songs that we felt deserved a second chance, a 'revision,' if you will. Our passion for music is truly the common thread that binds our diverse body of work."

In Revisions you'll find an instrumental track that showcases the immense talent within the hands of the band members. You'll find a song about a peeping tom who can't swim spying on a swimming girl and is forced to watch her drown with no way to help, containing lyrics as equally haunting as its melody. You'll find a song about those of us who wear masks to hide our dark sides from the outside world with an irresistibly catchy chorus. You'll find a song about a gangster whose killing ways are unexpectedly turned on him, with undertones of American social commentary. And at the end of the album, you'll find a folk song about Joey Eppard, head of 3, killing off his bandmates, regretting the act, then turning his murderous ways on himself to reunite the band.

3 has an amazing knack for creating melodies that will get stuck in your head for days and melding them with lyrics more thought-provoking than your radio pop fodder.

If you're in the mood for something new, something undeniably unique, something beautiful, and something actually worth buying versus downloading, find yourself a copy of Revisions.

Immerse yourself in it.

Let it sweep you away.

And enjoy.