JJ Got Live RaTX
(Drag City) Used CD $6.00
In which the denim’n’leather metal queen exorcises every last vestige of her former band’s avant-rock influence and enjoys the 1988 she never got to experience the first time around. Jennifer Herrema’s gruff, three-cartons-a-day voice sounds more ballsy than anything at the heavily spandexed Headbanger’s Ball (leave it to a woman to correct such a deficiency). JJ Got Live RaTX unashamedly revels in authentically ’80s details: the slowly swelling synth intro to “You Should Shut Up” that sounds like Giorgio Moroder’s intro theme to Scarface; the squealing lead fills on “Are You a Boy or Are You Girl” that fly by like orange globulars on expert level Guitar Hero; the crunchy-riffed break in the middle of “Virginia Creeper” lifted straight from Scorpions’ “No One Like You”; the brief Eliminator-style techno-boogie denouement to “Mr. Wall.” From 2008