The Trucks

Opening line in "T*****s," the singalong second track from the Trucks' debut: "What makes you think we can f**k just because you put your tongue in my mouth and you twisted my t*****s, baby?" Not direct enough? Try on the Velvets-esque "Why The?," the chorus of which finds the all-female quartet wondering of a paramour, "Why the f**k won't you go down on me?" Hello! Welcome to the unambiguous world of Bellingham, Washington's Trucks, as uncompromising a band as you're about to hear. Don't get the wrong idea, though — it's not all tough stuff; these lovable-when-they-wanna-be lasses are more than the Bangles with claws. There's actually an underlying sweetness to much of the Trucks' material, set in a post-punk/retro-synth pop/garagey framework; that is, if post-punk/retro-synth pop/garage bands normally featured a xylophone as a lead instrument. When they're not, for example, trying to escape the creep who can't take no for an answer in "Man Voice," which employs a bad imitation of same to illustrate the severity of the situation, the Trucks leave the shock value behind and dare to flirt with playfulness. "Messages" is a bona fide when-are-you-coming-back-to-me? semi-ballad, while "Comeback" is a perfectly chipper pop hit single in the making (except, perhaps, for that "guns aren't bad, they're just not quiet" line). We even find out, a bit later in the aforementioned "T*****s," that the squeezer's problem is not so much his presumptiveness as his impatience in finding out how best to get off our heroines. Not, it seems, that they need help with much of anything.