I’m sure this was unintentional but Brighton, MA have, in the form of its new record, Amateur Lovers, given us the road map for surviving this economic crisis. The Chicago quartet, including Matt Kerstein, formerly of Scotland Yard Gospel Choir, suggests here that one should favor naked, fumbling, in-the-moment love over whatever best intentions you have for your life ("I need a thousand warm bodies who want nothing in return," sings Kerstein on "Sunblinded"). Yet there’s also a streak of the political here as well, and several nods to wake-me-when-it’s-over optimism. (The anti-Ron Paul sentiment "Everybody must leave the gold standard" is probably just coincidence.)

Recorded in late 2007 and early 2008, just as the early warning signs of the real estate crisis were being ignored, Lovers manages to be the comforting grandmotherly hug we all need right now: "It’s not our fault/Kill the dream of fame and fortune/Let’s just try and begin again," Kerstein intones on "Not Our Fault." Later, he cautions against pulling out of stocks altogether on "Hold On": "It turns out the winners/Are the ones sticking it out…It’s just that our ghosts/Don’t look so holy now." (Or possibly it’s about facing the reality of a relationship after the flush of lust has passed. But who doesn’t feel that way about their financial planner?)

The lead track, "Let’s Be Friends Again," is the kind of song that Rick Rubin really ought to be coaxing out of Neil Diamond. Awash in a miasma of reverbed vocals, "Friends" says that "war wounds will heal" even as "we’ve been paid to take a dive." "You’ve gotta find your own way to feel/Your way through this life," Kerstein warbles, trucking in sentimentality that is so often dismissed as trite or re-contextualized as noble sincerity. Regardless, it’s refreshing to hear music that would pass as a drunken 3am phone call.

Much of the album is covered in a sonic sheen of rose-colored nostalgia, the kind you feel when reading through college love letters while listening to an old mix tape; "Hold On" contains hints of Badfinger, and "Eskimos" nicks a lick from Leo Sayer’s "When I Need You." But crisis isn’t ever far behind on this record as on the bomb shelter love story "Underground" ("Things aren’t really that okay/Like you’ve been telling yourself for days"). The solution? Take refuge in each other’s indulgence, my friends, because it’s free and at the end of the day is often all you have left. Eventually, the sun will come out.

The two songs at the end of the album trail off a bit: The title track is a consummation of the romantic themes throughout the album while "Old Parked Car" is a seemingly unfinished four-minute demo that fades in around :40 and fades out with almost a minute to spare. But there’s a hidden nugget right at the end as a disembodied voice ponders a bit of filthy lucre: "I don’t know if we can deposit that at the bank, maybe an offshore savings account…"

It’s a mercenary note to end on, but one that resonates no matter what you love.

Brighton, MA play a record release show at Metro on Saturday 11 with Catfish Haven, Record Low, and Rego. Tickets are $10 at the door, but can be had for $5 by ordering online and using the password "devastator." The show is also a record release show for Catfish Haven’s Devastator. For more on that record, see Miles Raymer’s Chicago Reader column this week.