For all their rebel posturing, many so-called alternative bands still adhere to the old-fashioned conventions of melody and verse-chorus-verse. But not Girls Against Boys. Their songs are mostly combinations of three or four killer riffs and a juggernautlike groove. Welding metallic-riff crunch to Teutonic trance rock, the band draws on the big, nasty neoindustrial sound of Chicago outfits like the Jesus Lizard, Big Black and Ministry. But where those groups holler, Girls Against Boys singer Scott McCloud rasps like a debauched East Village lounge lizard; his nicotine-stained vocals owe a fair amount of cigarette money to Psychedelic Furs' Richard Butler, while his incantatory delivery and ciphered lyrics recall a sexier version of the Fall's Mark E. Smith.

The darkly sensual element that pervaded the band's last two albums remains, and it's a refreshing anomaly on the asexual alternative landscape. The band accomplishes this without overt strutting and pouting; the sensuality all comes down to an aloof cool, a suggestive growl and the way the two-bass rhythm section throbs like some erotic factory (or is that a sex machine?). The effect is mesmerizing even though the tunes aren't strictly memorable. McCloud gets to the essence of the band's sound in "Another Drone in my Head": "It gets around your eyes/It gets around your head/It gets you hypnotized."

The ominous wah-wah howl on "Super-Fire" is magnetic, and the dissonant one-note guitar stabs on "Click Click" make the song. Even McCloud's voice wears a light veil of insidious distortion; he clearly relishes the k sounds in "TheKindaMzk-YouLike." On "Disco Six Six Six," drummer Alexis Fleisig whacks out a huge, walloping funk beat, with Eli Janney's Hammond-from-hell keyboard lick dogging it like a bad conscience. Like every other track on House, the malevolent groove of "Disco" reaffirms a rock verity: Feeling bad – as in bad to the bone – feels really, really good. (RS 733)

MICHAEL AZERRAD