If you're gonna make snarky, sneering rock and roll, you have to keep up the front the entire way. Frontwoman Erica Sellers has a history of just that, with previous stints in CatFight and the Dead Deads (drummer Angie Lese is her musical traveling companion through all this).

Taco Mouth A Deafening Silence (self-released)

What I find interesting is that this is produced by Michael Wagener. While he might be most famous for helming Master of Puppets, I associate him most closely with Dokken (he has produced most--if not all--of their albums). But even that is giving him short shrift. Among his credits are Too Fast For Love, Pride, Look What the Cat Dragged In, Balls to the Wall and Out of the Night. If you are even passably familiar with 80s glam metal, you know those albums by heart.

But Wagener has also produced albums by X, King's X and other not-exactly hair metal types. He manages to find a muscular sound that doesn't get in the way of itself. Taco Mouth has the sharp punch of 80s metal informed by both punk and pop influences. Makes me wonder a bit what a Wagener-produced Joan Jett album might sound like.

Really, though, the strength here is the non-stop adrenaline produced by Taco Mouth. Sellers writes songs without brakes, and the band rolls through them with gusto. Yes, Wagener punched up (and certainly prettied up) the sound, but Taco Mouth has the chops to blister its way just about anywhere. Getting steamrolled never sounded so much fun.

Jon Worley