Hot Snakes, with The Husbands

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the ascendancy of edge-sanded, pop-friendly punk has sent underground iconoclasts into the grimy garage sound that was one of punk’s main inspirations. With a raw primitive attack, The Husbands’ Sarah Reed and Sadie Shaw deliver surf-guitar thunder with gale force garage power. Their debut, Introducing The Sounds of . . . , imagines Joan Jett fronting The Fleshtones on a reverb and drug-filled odyssey. The album was produced by John Reis of influential San Diego dirty garage punkers Rocket From The Crypt and Drive Like Jehu. Reis reunites with Jehu’s Rick Froberg in Hot Snakes and forges the best of both bands, combining the high-throttle theatrics of RFTC and the hardcore, two-steps-shy-of-post-punk guitar experimentalism of Jehu. It’s a tense, edgy, rumbling sound reminiscent of Wire or Mission of Burma, but with the kind of straight-ahead crunch and dirty throb that’ll wrinkle your shirt and leave you feeling greasier than a pimply teen.