The latest EP from Brooklyn band Pink Noise is called Here is Happiness, but don't let that fool you — it only takes 30 seconds of the white light/white heat rush of "Next One is Real" for bassist/vocalist Sharron Sulami to howl "I went down where the souls get hurt!" as a hail-of-bullets rain down behind her. Make no mistake: There's something wicked at work here. Happiness walks a short path from the cradle to the grave, opening with two figures disappearing down a mist-wreathed path at midnight and peaking with Sulami ominously sighing, "Last December when I died, pretty flowers in your eyes/ Ah, the dirt tasted good today," just four songs later.

This is the Pink Noise master plan: Never let 'em see you stab. They pair a romantic's desperate yearning with the shadowy countenance of a boardwalk palm reader, creating the kind of grim foreboding usually found in old silent horror films. Over the course of Happiness's tense half-hour, they ricochet madly between the kind of creamy guitar swirl perfected by the early '90s by Lush to the white-knuckle punk rock frenzy of PJ Harvey at around that same time. The whole EP seems to be taking… read more »