Skeletons, the shape-shifting post-rock project of Matt Mehlan, create oblique sonic worlds perched somewhere between sickly-sweet pop confessionals and the fever-pitch abstractions of out-jazz and experimental electronica. While the group’s idiosyncratic pop vision falls just short of a comfortable familiarity, their always unpredictable, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach guarantees never to be boring. MONEY, the Skeleton’s third album, is even more ambitious in concept and execution than previous efforts; stretching the notion of the financial plight of the “starving artist” in the big city across ten thematically-tied tracks. Mehlan’s terse Symbolist-like lyrics are spoke-sung with a mix of childlike naivety and wry witticism, delivering lines like “Smells grow stronger now/Fly closer to the nose/I grow a mustache as a filter so I never have to know” on the song “Stepper aka Work.” Other tracks, like the fragmentary funk number “The Things,” meld obtuse lyrical imagery with paroxysms of stop-start rhythms, jagged guitar interjections, and squealing horn fanfare--offering skewed musical grandeur on a scale as panoramic as the band’s limitless wellspring of inspirations.