Dagons

Another guitar/drums duo, but plying their trade in ways that sound completely original, despite musical touchstones like the Cramps and Blondie. The opening is bawdy and intense and it's quickly apparent that singer/guitarist Karie Jacobson and drummer Drew Kowalski know a thing or two about catchy songs. This isn't their higher purpose however, which is to steadily creep you out in a most delicious way. Fans of Siouxsie and This Mortal Coil take note: Jacobson has a fantastic, childlike voice not unlike Debbie Harry, but more ethereal and with a considerably darker edge. The rivals/lovers that populate her world are forever biting, drowning, dilating and stringing up their teeth for pearls; it's cruel and it's beautiful, and the nightmares all part of the pleasure. The guitar-and-drum dance is a tightly structured little mess; intense throughout, wound-up, raw and moody, with a few country music skirmishes that shouldn't work, but do. They close with a rough recording of Jacobson's late grandmother singing the traditional "I Don’t Want to Play in Your Yard.” It's not as incongruous as it sounds and it sheds some light on the Dagons' murky waters. What Yeah Yeah Yeahs fans might ask for if they weren't so distracted by the fuck-me and the fashion.