This authentic, damaged, street-kid
punk
outfit boasts the magnificent, mouth-full-of-marbles gutter-
accent of
Brody
, wife of
Rancid
's
Tim Armstrong
. (Both slur their vocals in a similar fashion.) Improving on their very fine, self-titled debut album, their latest,
Sing Sing Death House
, is battle-scarred and resolute, but
's tough voice is more expressive than your average punker's and especially affecting when she flaunts the full range of her throaty snarl. On
"Seneca Falls,"
an appreciation of the women's suffrage movement set to chugging guitars and a thumpity-thump bass, there's an exceptional, goosebump-inducing though unintelligible chorus, which soars above the music because of the emotional quality of
's howl. Otherwise, the music is quite stirring, coming from a gang of gutter-
punks
with lip piercings. The song
"The Young Crazed Peeling"
is about having a crap upbringing, surviving, and actually becoming a happily married
. After telling the story of how her mom kicked her dad out of the house because he beat her up,
goes on to sing about how life has gotten better, "I love a man from California/He's the prettiest thing/We got the same disorder/The way you feel is okay/It's never going to change anyway/It hit me/I got everything I need." It's a story with an uncharacteristic ending that
born of squalor can rise up and create music as impassioned and relatively positive as this. ~ Adam Bregman