All Teeth and Knuckles

With a bevy of ex-punk rockers and faux bohemians exploring electro-pop and hip-hop these days, the field is getting a bit crowded. All Teeth and Knuckles sets itself apart by bringing a defiant, energetic attitude and an undercurrent of irreverence to its songs. Seldom has such a scathing set of putdowns been put to such buoyant and danceable music. Each track is a veiled slap in the face to less savory aspects of the heroin-chic set and yet an unabashed celebration of the cartoonish hedonism of club culture. Although every song is driven by Giorgio Moroder-esque beats, which are nearly metronomic in their mechanical insistence, they escape monotony. While name-checking like-minded South American electro-pop band CSS, All Teeth and Knuckles manages to carve out its own identity by wedding gritty, minimalistic musical elements with the kind of harsh lighting that gangster rap's lyrics cast on urban life in the late 1980s. This is hip-hop with a knowing wink and a stiff middle finger.