Five years after she debuted as the guitarist for her sister Kim Deal's band, the Breeders, Kelley Deal has made a fun and arty fuck-about of a solo album. Boom! Boom! Boom! is a melee of styles and sounds, with Deal leading the circus: She lets out adolescent shouts over obnoxious, power-punk blasts like "Shag," delivers scratchy-sexy whispers in surreal and moody numbers like "Skylark," and is even able to tap a down-'n'-out nerve in the spare country tune "When He Calls Me Kitten."

There's a lot of sonic debris here, too: bratty Mouseketeer-like cheers, hokey ditties such as "Stripper" and arbitrary instrumentation like military snare drums and penny whistles. But Boom! is Deal's playground and workshop – you've got to sift through her eccentric mess to get to the true nuggets of inspiration. Ultimately, it's worth the work. (RS 769)

LORRAINE ALI