Kristin Allen-Zito

“There’s just something about them,” Kristin Allen-Zito sings-mutters to open her 2004 album Helium. Sounds like yet another coffeehouse singer with cigarette-stained vocals, a strummed acoustic guitar and cute “ooh”s in the background, but then she finishes the sentence — “that makes me want to stick my dick in/I know it’s the original sin.” The album isn’t all gender-bending shock value, thankfully, but sometimes it takes a little surprise to rise above the songwriters’ fray, and Allen-Zito delivers many in her witty, illustrative songs and no-bullshit pop-rock approach, resembling Helium lead singer Mary Timony (appropriate).