Suffering and the Hideous Thieves have recorded an album called Real Panic Formed, and I suspect it will become the means of unspoken emotion for all who hear it, and future torment for the ones who inspired it or are given it. As a vocalist and songwriter, Jeff Suffering is already being compared to Nick Cave, and his band, which comprises members of the Prom, Red Stars Theory, Raft of Dead Monkeys, and other musicians, plays melodies swollen with the kinds of aches and aftermaths complex relationships leave behind.

Picturesque instrumentation that swoops and slopes is no longer an oddity in our music scene, although to most outsiders the region is still known primarily for its rock. But we're hardly deceptive in our fake bravado. It's like our weather. We strut powerfully once the promised Indian summer arrives, but retreat to our couches, beds, and sad cocktails when the rain pours down--as it always does--four days later. The revelation of a soft musical underbelly beneath all our supposed bombast is a reality as comforting as it is clinging, but the urge to embrace it is in our bones, whether we've lived here our whole lives or merely a few seasons.

At the heart of Real Panic Formed lies the beaten-down victim of a doomed union, his heart bruised and his soul scuttling across the ragged and stained sheets of a now-empty marriage bed. Real Panic Formed is the kind of album where I don't want to know whether it is based in reality. Given its utter ache and unguarded lyrics, I know in my heart of hearts that it probably is based in pure reaction. But I don't want to be sure because, well, I'd hate to be the woman who inspired it. No one wants to hear that they weren't loved, that it was all just a scene played out under the influence of painkillers and booze, or that they've reduced someone once cherished into a twisted, kicking snarl of rage and rabid mistrust.

Musically, however, Real Panic Formed is a jaw-dropping wonder: a heaving, cascading flow of orchestral arrangements that conjures a less drugged-out Spiritualized, a less festive Firewater, a redemptionless Delgados. "Cure Violence with Violence," "My Black Heart Infection," "Sex Is Dead"--these are the kinds of titles that anchor complicated, drawn-out treatises on pain and deep violet anger, the kind that's colored by the pigment of sadness rather than a deep magenta wish to maim. Eight musicians thunder and roil as guitars, violins, keyboards, and drums thrash out heady elation and remorse in tandem, because those emotions inevitably come packaged together, no matter how hard the manufacturer schemes to disguise their pairing.

Lyrically, the disc is flat-out depressing, not the kind of songs you want to hear if you're looking for anything other than leaden commiseration and feel-your-pain solidarity. Hand me the blue pills and pour me another glass of red wine. Bright sides and silver linings don't occur: "You sit there nude on the edge of our deathbed/You look at me with your blue eyes/and you understand me and all my lies" ("The Other Side of the Moon"); "I remember how you caught my eye/Anybody else would have died/So we balanced ourselves on Percocet/And now it all seems so meaningless" ("Cure Violence with Violence"); "Got your name tattooed round my arm/Think I'll cover it up/You've armed me tonight" ("Sex Is Dead"). It isn't pretty on paper, but it sounds so very lovely set to music.

Suffering and the Hideous Thieves performed in all their resplendent glory when they opened for Aveo and Carissa's Wierd last weekend at Graceland. The stage was populated with all manner of musicians and singers playing instruments passionately and carelessly, some appearing pained while others seemed possessed. This week's all-ages show at the Paradox with Love Life, Get Hustle, and Onalaska is reported to feature a stripped-down, mostly acoustic version of the band, and starkness will prevail.

My advice is to experience Suffering and the Hideous Thieves both ways. Each should prove to be equally devastating, in disparate ways. Buy the album, luxuriate in it carefully, and assign its sentiments cautiously.