Two Ton Boa

Like a non-bluesy Johnette Napolitano seething with righteous venom, Sherry Fraser is back with a new album after a seven-year hiatus. Her band, Two Ton Boa, often gets compared to Sleater-Kinney, mainly because they're both on Kill Rock Stars. And while Fraser and company exhibit a similar type of passionate defiance in their work, that's where the musical similarities end. Boa actually has more avant-goth undertones; rarely has such anthemic, orchestral music been imbued with such lurid presence and aggression. Fans of the Dresden Dolls will find much to love here. Two Ton's dire and sometimes disturbing sound conjures the Birthday Party hanging out at the Carnival of Souls. On the group's latest release, Parasiticide, Fraser's forceful, brooding vocal style blends with driving, dirty bass lines to create a nightmarish vision that lays to waste any poseurs currently blighting the landscape.