Being down never sounded so uplifting.The new album by Future Bible Heroes, one of indie rock king Stephin Merritt’s side projects, makes situations that would send most running for their Prozac sound full of hope.Merritt, best known as the man behind the Magnetic Fields, the 6ths, and the Gothic Archies, teams up with Fields’ collaborator Claudia Gonson and Christopher Ewen of the ’80s band Figures On A Beach to create some very memorable pop songs.Their newest effort, I’m Lonely (and I Love It), is conceptualized as a “five-course tasting menu,” and won’t disappoint your musical palate.With songs by Merritt and Ewen, and vocal duty shared by Merritt and Gonson, this album manages to sound both nostalgic for the ’80s and terribly modern in the same breath.It’s not easy to describe Stephin Merritt’s deep crooning voice. If you’ve never heard him, he is worth the price of admission. The title song opens with an electronic hook. Then comes Merritt’s deep baritone voice confiding how lonely he is. Close your eyes and it’s 1980 – you’re listening to Joy Division. Then Merritt tells you that he actually likes being lonely – poof! The illusion is gone.Truly, Ian Curtis is possibly the best comparison to what Merritt’s Future Bible Heroes music sounds like. The difference is that while Merritt, a self-aware pessimist winking at you, is in on the joke, all the gloom and doom in Joy Division’s songs was tragically real.This album is also full of more pop than Joy Division ever came close to. Think New Order, but New Order on the songs where Bernard Sumner tries to sound like Ian Curtis, circa “Blue Monday.”Merritt has been called, by himself, among others, one of the best lyricists around, and this album just bolsters that reputation. “My Blue Hawaii,” a list of things he loves about the islands, includes the fact that “You can find your own messiah, in the pit of a papaya.””Café Hong Kong” is possibly the best translation ever of film noir into a pop song. Gonson’s dreamy vocals tell her lover to “wait for her forever,” at the aforementioned café. It’s a very “We’ll always have Paris” kind of moment.”Good Thing I Don’t Have Any Feelings” is a little number that sounds like it lost its way from the “Pretty In Pink” soundtrack. It’s another case of girl dumping boy, but the electronic chords in the background sound so upbeat, you may have a hard time believing the authenticity of the lyrics. The last song on the album, “Hopeless,” is a song that Future Bible Heroes have recorded before. This time around Gonson takes over on the layered vocals and the result is a disco-tempo version of a song about finding happiness in futility. Gonson sings that even though “All of our plans are lying in ten-car road wrecks, there’s just no point in crying, you know it’s hopeless.” Despite its title, “Hopeless” is anything but.This is also the song that will remind fans most of early Magnetic Fields music.On “Hopeless,” Gonson’s voice sounds incredibly similar to Fields’ vocalist Susan, who sang on their first two albums. In fact, the entire song sounds a lot like the classic Fields’ tune “100,000 Fireflies,” and that is not a bad thing.Stephin Merritt may not be the most well-known name in music, but along with some help from Future Bible Heroes, he proves that he may be one of the most prolific.