Morningwood

Morningwood lead vocalist Chantal Claret endears herself as the self-proclaimed "Mae West of rock 'n' roll" (and scores bonus points for even knowing who West is), melding that welcome sense of sass and sex-tease with her band's anxious pop crunch to take the NYC club scene on a skittering trip back to its future on MW's full-length debut. It's futile to evoke pretensions of post-modernism for a band having this much salacious fun pumping up the hilarious urgency of the showstopper "Take Off Your Clothes" or giddily blasting Madonna's moribund club beats with bracing doses of decades-spanning punk energy on the bounding single "Nth Degree." Producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters) imparts a sense of accomplished abandon to the songs of Claret and bassist/fellow band mainstay Pedro Yanowitz, from the scorching buzzsaw-pop of "Jetsetter" and "Easy" and moody nerve of "Body" and "Everybody Rules" to the disparate teases "Babysitter" and "New York Girls." The sex-charged energy of Claret's chamaeleonic vocals should make her instant rock goddess, but it's the whole vibrant package here that makes Morningwood so musically arousing. --Jerry McCulley

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