Perpetually pissed, Diamanda Galas has screamed her way into cult-goddess status. Arriving in 1982 with "Wild Women With Steak Knives" and serving up in the AIDS requiem Plague Mass a magnum opus, she's a flashy fury with a three and a half octave range and a sensibility spun off from highbrow naughty boys de Sade and Artaud. Ex-Led Zep bassist and eclectic producer and arranger John Paul Jones (Butthole Surfers, R.E.M.) manufactures clangorous backdrops for her operatic murder fantasies and victim chic. What continues to dog Galas is her painful literal mindedness: To chronicle states of psychic torture, she simply tortures the listener. Strictly for fans of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. (RS 692)

PAUL EVANS