Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers

Wikipedia gives September 2, 2003 and Brassland September 1. It was recorded in many places: Excello in Brooklyn, Gretchen's Kitchen, Headgear (formerly Butch Vig's), Bryan Devendorf's basement with a fireplace, and Tarquin Studios in Fairfield, Connecticut, in the attic of an 1891 Victorian house, where Peter Katis mixed and recorded more, his first album with the band. Padma Newsome played viola, violin and did the orchestration, and Nick Lloyd played piano and keyboards. All lyrics are Berninger's.

It has a Metacritic score of 78, Pitchfork 8.4, Drowned in Sound nine out of ten and Uncut four, and Uncut and the Chicago Tribune named it album of the year. The single was "Slipping Husband" (November 17, 2003), and about 27,000 copies had been sold in the United States as of 2010. Brassland's liner copy says "Available" and "Murder Me Rachael" may be the loudest moments in the band's discography, and Rolling Stone's Greg Kot cites the hurtling coda to "Available". The album was reissued in remastered form in 2021.