(Boy Without God Music) “If I was a beautiful man / I wouldn't worry 'bout love,” sings Gabriel Birnbaum in “Of Cowboys & Other Beautiful Men,” the opening track of God Bless the Hunger. He follows it with “If I was a waterfall / I would let water fall.” This is the kind of lyrical greatness you're in for when you listen to the new album from Boy Without God, Birnbaum's solo-project-turned-full-band. It's not all poetic speculation, though. In the same song, he croons, “Rich boys tear off their clothes and do lots of blow / Rich girls follow poor boys around for a sense of danger / and everyone's a hero, baby / I know, I know, I know.” This is right before the horns kick in, sounding like a lost track from a Sufjan Stevens session.

The album was recorded in a studio but with a low-fi quality that's irresistible. The songs are tales of down-and-out kids doing dumb things in pursuit of a good time — drinking, getting arrested, falling in love. These are the same people The Smiths wrote about in “Rusholme Ruffians,” and Squeeze tried to keep an eye on them in “Slap & Tickle.” They may be doing it in America rather than England, but young people fighting boredom and hopelessness are the same in any country. Birnbaum points one finger at the beauty of the struggle and another at the absurdity of it all.

In “Can't Concentrate,” he sings, “I can't concentrate on books,” and “The awful wildness of the heat trapped inside this chest scares me stupid.” He's not putting anyone on a pedestal, least of all himself. At the same time, he can't escape the tangle of human emotions that seem enticing from the outside but hurt like hell when you venture in. This is the hunger of the album's title that consumes us all: the hunger to be understood, to be loved, to be told it's going to be all right. We can't get away from it, so we might as well find something good to say about it. In the middle, the song devolves into a confusing mess of violins, frantic guitar strums, and twinkling piano notes that feel brave and awkward at the same time, like someone trying to pull their thoughts together. Finally, they do, and the vocals return: “Forget the nights, the T.V. lights.” It's an incantation against loneliness.

Birnbaum is often accompanied by female harmonies. The singers could be any one of the musicians listed on Boy Without God's website: Mallory Moye, Katie Von Schleicher, Brittany Asch. These are only three names among many; there seems to be a shifting cast of people waiting to back him up on record and on the road. According to their blog, they've overcome the death of their van, found a new vehicle, and are now in Toronto listening to a honky-tonk version of “Psycho Killer.” How many of them are there? You'd have to go to a show to find that out, but they seem to be having a good time. Listening to the album, one would guess that their live shows occasionally tear off into crazy improvisations, like the one that closes out “Love Letter.”

Birnbaum never lets it get out of hand, though. He's always there with a line like “I got a winter's debt piling up in snow banks” to keep everyone on track. He sounds a bit like a blues singer when he delivers that line, and the song “The Snow Speaks” has a gently swaying doo-wop flair. That's until he shouts, “Come on, now!” and kicks it into high gear for the chorus: “The snow speaks to me / of the sweetness of layin' down, layin' down, layin' down.”

The title track, “God Bless the Hunger,” pretty much says it all: “You are not the moon, and I am not the sun / We're just two bodies in a room in a city in a country in a song.” Birnbaum is ready to take on the world: “I can do this every night and never tire at all / drift in and out of sleep, but never ever fall,” but the world always has strange surprises in store. The horns tilt and whirl into off-keys, and the violins start to shriek spastically. “I can feel as it moves in my chest and my eyes and my fingers and my toes and my lungs and my teeth and my legs and my heels and my skies and my trees and in every part of my body that is furthest from my heart / I mean I really / wanna / see you / tonight...” The song stutters into a wild maelstrom before Birnbaum comes back in and leads the way into sense and order for a few shouted lines before banging and smashing once more to a halt.

Yes, it's not easy trying to get your head around love, but God Bless the Hunger is a valiant attempt. It alternately grooves and explodes like a museum of fireworks. There's not a song that doesn't reach out and grab you, making you listen, think, feel, wonder. “I still hold out a hope that if I can put everything that's wrong with me into a song and play the final chord / I will be made new / slough it off like old skin / send the demons scatterin' / be the one you love again.” Here's hoping.