East River Pipe GARBAGEHEADS ON ENDLESS STUN (Merge)

This is a collection of softly burnished pop songs that sport insidious themes. With lo-fi production and home-quilted arrangements, the album sets its focus on the current rise of classism and the effect of its trickle-down economics. Be it the tongue-in-cheek campaign slogan "Millionaires of Doubt" or the stoned reflection "Where Does All the Money Go?," the band’s sweetly sung odes to the darker side of our postmodern world delve into the fractured fever dreams of the have-nots and the blights of substance abuse, teen violence, and familial dysfunction. In contrast to the sun-shiny guitar melodies, shimmering keyboards, and clap-along electronic drum beats, the lyrics lure you into a shadowy world; "I Bought a Gun in Irvington" is a rueful Columbine lullaby that’s both lovely and deadly. East River Pipe’s undercurrent of futile despair belies their upbeat pop surfaces, but seldom has bleakness sounded so pretty.