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...

Rage. fury. death. decay. damnation. Sin. Pestilence. The talented Diamanda Galas has a vision of the world that makes the horror-stricken likes of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft seem like pink-cheeked Pollyannas. On past work, like Plague Mass and Masque of the Red Death, the eccentric diva has sometimes resorted to bombast and high melodrama in an attempt somehow to overwhelm the terrors and...