Suffrajett

Album Review

With the sexy and soulful vocals of Suffrajett's frontwoman, Simi, and the gritty, Lower East Side guitar rock that defines their debut, the band might be closest to fellow New Yorkers the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But despite the in-your-face venom of tunes like "Love Me More" and the Rolling Stones swagger that largely characterizes the lo-fi album, songs like "Gone," for example, owe more to the glam of David Bowie and Roxy Music and even A Momentary Lapse of Reason-era Pink Floyd arena rock then to the early-2000s downtown scene revival. Like another one of their contemporaries — Grand Mal — the more the glam, the better it sounds. "D.L.S." pulls out all the stops, with a big, keyboard-driven sound that finds the dirty rockers wandering close to Go-Go's territory and "Get Away" crawls like some torn-up rock dirge. Despite some catchy songwriting and an impressive heaviness, Suffrajett is still the type of album where the songs quickly fade from memory. But it's a debut that establishes the band as worthy of some serious attention.