Bride of No No

Lead Bride Azita, also a member of Chicago's no-wave darlings, the Scissor Girls, possesses one of those voices that is neither ugly nor beautiful but a force of nature. Equal parts Carla Bozulich, Jean Smith and Courtney Love she proclaims a path through the seven songs that make up her band’s second album. The music is at once complex yet primal, like scientists trapped in the Jurassic era carving a phone booth out of teak. Barely-there time signatures hinge together stop/start dual/duelling guitar parts and occasional slurred piano runs. The piano is the key to the album's calm eye in the storm, providing a placid moment with "Piano Intro" before whipping up the wind again for the mini-epic "Piano One." The album is a master class in art rock that springs not from highbrowed forehead, but hot and bothered from the loins.