Well, whaddya know. This new Blood Brothers album IS good.

-- my girlfriends asute summation of the entire appeal/problem of this band.

This might be the point of the comment.

The key to enjoying BB is embracing their vocalists' interplay wholeheartedly. Johnny is the infamous one because his delivery has been getting more abd more effeminate with time, and on "Crimes" he sounds like he's trying to channel the voice of some long lost, dead female soul singer, all while screaming his head off like the hardcore kid he won't admit he is. But it's the addition of Jordan that caps it - his singing is understated, much lower in tone, almost Britt Daniel-esque in some ways. The way their vocal styles clash and intertwine constantly - thing a mutant Simon and Garfunkel - is something to behold.

But none of this would matter if the songs sucked. They don't. It starts with "Feed Me to the Forest", a Oneida-esque stomper with what would be an awesome chorus if it didn't only happen once. It sonds nothing like their old material.

Then a huge wail of feedback greeting the wonderfully titled "Trash Flavored Trash", the first single. It sounds like "Dirty"-era Sonic Youth being played double-speed, in every sense. It rocks. "The five o'clock news is a fucking fantasy."

Then there's my favorite song of the year, "Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck". Starting with an abrupt but melodic guitar-drum-maraca-handclap intro, and moving into an almost J-pop feel, and opening with the fantastic line, "those tire tracks / zigzag your torso like the devil's self-portrait" before Johnny starts really getting in touch with his feminine side for real this time with his backing vocals, before a refrain of "love love love..." really starts to make this track something special. Lovely steady 80's drums. Then, "back at the hospital, you've got no visitors at all. she visits you in your sleep with that newspaper gown...", and it finally rocks out - gloriously - with both vocalists in full throttle but the band still showing surprising restraint. It really has to be heard to be believed.

"Peacock Skeleton With Crooked Feathers" is another strong diversion from their hardcore roots, with more persistent maraca and a leading keyboard line, as well as more directly political lyrics than usual, not limited to the title - "If wedding bells sound like death knells baby / is a wealthy groom worth all this gloom?". ti's the only song that reaches 'Burn' length - which is to say four and a half minutes - and it maintains a wonderful sense of momentum. Even more restrained than "Car Wreck" in some ways.

"Teen Heat" is a little pop gem with bouncy, almost beat-boxy backing vocals and a tight, fast little chorus. Johnny contributes cheerleader exuberance on the second verse, but even more unusually, Jodan ushers in an old-school 808-style break before one last freakout.

"Rats and Rats and Rats for Candy" has the best title but is my least favorite. It has some lovely guitar breaks and one of the more effective narratives on the album - the tale of the overnight "romance" of Candy and Mr. Howell, with the slight issue that Candy is afflicted with an infestation of nasty flesh-eating rodents that seduced her with tears of self-pity. (it's not that I think little narratives like this are particularly insightful, but I like that they have the intensity and conviction to pull it off without total hackneyed-ness). Johnny truly unleashing his inner Hannah on this one, and Jordan filling in the story with nicely melodic stanzas.

Then there's the title track, which has to be their quietest track overall, all organ and acoustic guitar and hypnotic drumline. Weirdly affecting, even with lines like "we're just like those condom wrappers, used up, torn up, thrown away".

Which brings us to the second half of the record, which turns into a panorama of gruesome war imagery, with NO restraint on any level - it suddenly morphs into a relentlessly incoherent record in all the right ways, with the whole band stretching their talents even further and structure - if not melodic sensibility - getting thrown pretty much completely out the window. And it' s glorious.

"My first kiss at the public execution" takes their penchant for graphic imagery a little far - hangings, beheadings, exploding heads, slit throats - but it's more than made up for by the sheer musical ingenuity at work here, from the stuttering little intro, to Johnny's batshit crazy backing wail, to the glorious wail of "so won't you hold me closer / until the execution's over"...and then finally to the unprecedented (on this album anyway) abrupt double-time noise orgy to finish it off. Mmm, noise orgy.

Then it's "Live at the Apocalypse Cabaret", which appropriately enough is piano-driven. "scarecrow! they stole my wife! they tied her to an ark in a field of rye". Then comes my favorite single moment on the whole album, where the song slows to a crawl, and Johnny has finally succeeded in channeling that old singer for an amazing, wailing middle eight while the band suddenly carves a clear, effective melody and everything just CLICKS. Then, a solemn piano-and-guitar epilogue.

Probably to wake up the fans who miss the hardcore days, there's the sub-2-minute "Beautiful Horses", which starts fast and loud and stays that way, but then reaches a manic helium rampage of "carpet bombs" and the "burning treasury", then another double speed Locust-style ending - "ride the show pony parade, and collapse, and come in fucking last".

"Wolf Party" brings back the piano but with a strongly dissonant edge and a more swaggering band. They're being outright unforgiving with their imagery now - "one man's murder scene is another's champagne party, one man's broken spine is a soldier's war decoration" More eloquently: "you bring in your kill from the savannah and bake it in the sun. the sun warps its skin and you see the face of God in its tarry mess. Those wolf mechanics...". Also, is that a cello? I think it might be!

After all that doom and gloom comes "Celebrator", a super-bouncy would-be party favorite if it weren't for lyrics like "every soldier's spewing black cum from their victory hard-ons" and other bits about dead children. Succinct and catchy as hell.

Finally, there's "Devastator", maybe the least sensical track on the album musically, but what a way to go. It opens with organ, then Johnny's mind-boggling vocal bagpipes (!), then some hymnlike backing vocals, before feedback comes crashing in like "Trash" and it's FAST. Then it slows, with almost arena-rock cadence. Then the piano comes pack. "Everybody needs a little devastation." Then everything but the piano and some acoustic guitar filters out. "a funeral bouquet ready to explode". and, in under two minutes, it's over. Wow.

For the delectable combination of nihilism and mlodicism, femininity and brutality, this album is worth a listen, if only at least a download. It's better than "March on electric children", and it's better than "Burn Piano Island Burn". What more could you want?