What happens to a dream deferred? If you're an unusually literate pop band, residing in New York City and passing time between gigs with daytime TV, it turns into a song. A killer song, as it happens, all about rock star daydreams and real job compromises, one that layers caustic, Weezer-ish spoken ironies over bayonet thickets of rock-action guitars. In it, the hero of "Raisin Bran in the Sun" chances on an infomercial for "all the other people that live in New York and write bitter little songs while they're out of work." Calling the 800 number, the singer is asked to dial one for daydreams ("where the songs flow like water and the wine flows like wine and I fuck drunk and hot models all the god-damned time") and two for therapy ("what about if you're wrong / and you never do write that perfect pop song.") In a sort of brilliant back and forth, snarky verse exploding into righteous rock, self-doubt melting into fist-thumping rebellion, the song skewers every self-justifying cliché you've ever heard a failed musician mouth -- but leaves you feeling that the Song Corporation might just be the band that kicks the door open.

There are only three tracks on The Raisin Bran EP, and the other two are so different from "Raisin Bran" that they might have come from another band. "Soothing Sugar" has a bossa nova lilt to its feathery girl vocals and not even a touch of sarcasm. "The Bug Speaks" is indie-pop through and through, skewed like Momus, and dizzyingly offhand about its subject, Hannah Arendt's The Origin of Totalitarianism.

These are all smart songs, nailed to the wall with crisp musicianship. Will The Song Corporation soon be "cutting charity singles and lying about their age" or mouthing platitudes about their kids making it all worthwhile? The smart money is on option one.