Leave it to an art historian to wrangle proportion into a discussion of pop music.

“I think proportion pervades everything, including time,” explains Art Di Furia, student of the art of the Italian Renaissance and leader of Philadelphia’s Photon Band. “I seek it in my life. Richard Hell said, ‘Love comes in spurts,’ and he’s right. Balance is hard to come by. Our appetites would have us believe otherwise.”

While punk rock and Pope Pius II aren't exactly chocolate and peanut butter, the combination is what keeps Di Furia level. When not pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Delaware, the Philly rock vet (Lilys, Brother JT & Vibrolux) is busy crafting songs for his own psychedelic pop outfit. It's been a few years since Di Furia released his band's second full-length, Oh, The Sweet, Sweet Changes, ostensibly because he's had his nose buried in books. (When contacted for an interview for the 2000 release of Changes, City Paper was advised to call the U of D slide library.)

Now finished with classes and having passed his oral exams, Di Furia's school obligations consist of teaching and writing his dissertation proposal: "One of the hardest things I've ever had to write," he laments.

If the band's recent relative spike in creative output is indicative, it seems Di Furia's got a little more of his brain free for music. Along with the mid-2001 release of the slow, gorgeous and mildly twangy vinyl-only EP, Alone on the Moon, we get a new slab of Photon soul with the band's third LP proper, It's a Lonely Planet (Darla). The album continues a somber trend in the band's sound (1998's All Young in the Soul was something of a bouncy ball of Paul Wellerian pop and bop) and deepens a penchant for perversely humorous/ponderous lyrics.

Call it a yen for the oblique or good old-fashioned bongside existentialism, but It's a Lonely Planet is something of a smoke-cloud think piece.

The title track plays like an "Eleanor Rigby" for the 21st century: "So many people, but where will they all go?/ Some of them are lonely, some of them have friends/ Some of them will never love but all their lives will end," sings Di Furia almost sheepishly. It's a dark and discomforting thought, and a bit chilly to kick off an album. But, like much of his work, the song is gorgeous in its simple elegance.

On "OuterSpace," Di Furia offers: "We are from outer space/ They just put us in this place/ And we don't know if we'll be here come tomorrow."

There's certainly plenty to get one pondering one's own mortality and the very nature of existence. But there's a sly humor to even Di Furia's darkest songs. "It's a Lonely Planet" features a jaunty British voice-over along with a slow, upbeat cadence, while "OuterSpace" has that Ziggy Stardust sci-fi feel. There may be gloom, but doom is not a prerequisite.

"Wooooooh' you're scaring me," laughs Di Furia. "Are you trying to say that there's, like, tragedy in my mirth? I guess I know what you mean. Even the humor is black."

"Indirection (school)" features the line: "And all the girls peruse their purses for the pill./ So they don't make some love and have to get it killed." Di Furia claims women have walked out of his performances after hearing him sing the line. "And who could blame them?"

At the same time, the band devotes a song, "Paper Plane," to, well, paper planes, while the album-closer, "We Don't Care Anymore," is a playful stab at the blissful apathy that comes with aging (with a bit of conspiracy theory thrown in for good measure).

The album is full of oddly touching sentiment and blunt exclamations like the aforementioned. It's all a part of that attention to balance Di Furia takes from his art history training.

"I know I wouldn't feel this way without thinking about the Renaissance so often," he explains. "Because of how the art is always shot through with conceptual and visual attention to proportion, I've begun to hear music, teaching, conversation and even the jokes my friends make and the lives they live, in terms of timing, rhythm and proportions. Even dart games."

An appreciation for the visual also infiltrates his muse. Some might claim that It's a Lonely Planet, with its decidedly psychedelic pop leanings, takes dribs and drabs of inspiration from the likes of Syd Barrett, mid-period Beatles and The Kinks. Di Furia will tell you otherwise.

"The songs on Lonely Planet came out quickly during a brief period when I was beginning to see music that is orange and green, and I started, on some subconscious level, to thinking about music as either hot or cold," he explains. "My dreams are full of synesthetic events, and listening to Hendrix or any of the old blues guys seems to encourage those kinds of dreams. That's when a lot of these songs got written."

Of course, only a guy getting his Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance art could drop the word synaesthetic into casual conversation. And once he gets that Ph.D.?

"I expect that the minute my degree is conferred upon me, magical fairies will lift me to the sky on an orange cloudburst, carrying me up, up, up into heaven where I'll spend the remainder of my days talking to elves," explains Di Furia with something of a straight face. "Seriously, though, at the very least, I expect to sleep very soundly for a few nights." During which he'll probably dream up new colors about which to write songs for yet another Photon Band album.

Photon Band will perform at their record release party Sat., Dec. 7, 9 p.m., $8, with Lilys and The Espers, The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888.