Sing Sing Death House

The second snarling album from mouth-foaming punk rock mad-dogs the Distillers. Twelve pop-bullshit-free tracks of glass-breaking, bottle-emptying, and odor-bearing anger, pain and chaos. No posers allowed. Digipak. Hellcat Records.

Bad Religion's Brett Gurewitz once called frontwoman Brody Armstrong's voice a "gravel truck with a broken axel," and his compliment isn't far from truth. The Australian native has a set of pipes on par with those of Joan Jett, Courtney Love (during Hole's Pretty on the Inside era), and Gits frontwoman Mia Zapata; she growls like a rabid dog and sings like she survives on whiskey and cigarettes. Her lyrical material is just as rough, as Armstrong uses her songs to relive a past riddled with problems--but in place of self-pity is an enormously forceful resolve to kick down whatever walls stand before her. Sing Sing Death House, the Distillers' second album, is an incredible storm of punk rock fury. Between Armstrong's guttural screams and the band's razor-sharp, hook-strapped tracks, there isn't a weak spot in all 12 songs. Although the band sometimes races into fierce hardcore snarls, most of the album consists of musically upbeat anthems, so even if the songs' issues are turbulent, there's a punk army optimism lining every dark cloud. For fans of intensely commanding female singers and solid, old-school punk rock, the Distillers provide an excellent album through and through. --Jennifer Maerz