After postponing the record for three months to continue revision and then burning through nearly a month of eighteen hour days in the studio, RAINER MARIA emerge clutching the meisterwerk of the postpunk literati: A Better Version of Me. Singer Caithlin De Marrais sounds positively remade. Viscerally affecting, but not eviscerated--listen to Hell and High Water. Check the high notes on "Thought I Was." Her bass playing is adroit and smooth, and on tracks like "Atropine," triplets well up from the bottom octave. Guitarist Kyle Fischer has torn apart and tweaked out every piece of gear he owns. The guitars wail and shriek a soft complaint. They roll splendidly at your feet through tracks like "The Seven Sisters," and sing during "Save My Skin." Listen to "Ceremony"--when William Kuehn leans into the snare drum, you can hear its dimensions and picture the space he's playing in. There's a profusion of air drummers at RAINER MARIA shows. His clean, melodic certitude explains the phenomenon. With their new album, RAINER MARIA complete the dramatic arc no one had realized was forming over the course of three albums. "Couples-rock?"--Instead, the sound of solitudes circling one another, just as R. M. Rilke described

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