Let’s start at the end, literally: “What if this is how we die?” Los Campesinos! gleefully chime on new album closer “Hung Empty,” counteracting that morbid curiosity with a peppy synthesizer hook. That’s pretty much been the band’s M.O. from day one: making depression sound like a goddamn carnival. It’s been four years since the indie-rock septet’s last LP, No Blues, but the Campesinos crew stored up a decade’s worth of angst for Sick Scenes, their gloomiest yet most celebratory work to date. In his signature shriek, frontman Gareth broaches subjects like mentalillness (the buzzing “I Broke Up in Amarante”), small-town misery (chamber-pop ballad “The Fall of Home”) and drug addiction (“5 Flucloxacillin,” which suggests an unhinged Coldplay), contrasting with his bandmates’ dynamic sprawl of power chords, postpunk drum grooves, glockenspiel, keyboards and violin. At times, you wish Gareth would pipe down to offer the others more freedom to roam. But Sick Scenes thrives on his grim revelations and gallows humor: “There is beauty in the world, I have been told, by people I’ve nothing but trust in,” he sings—the perfect lyric for his business card. It’s the classic Campesinos cocktail: a shot of euphoria, a chaser of despair.