L7

L7: Donita Sparks, Suzi Gardner (guitar, vocals); Jennifer Finch (bass, background vocals); Roy Koutsky (drums).
Additional personnel: Snuff Flik, Matthew Kurzban, Uncle Doug.
Recorded at Westbeach Recorders, Hollywood, California in 1987.
L7's eponymous debut finds the band just beginning to get their sea legs; their trademark grungy fusion of punk and metal isn't quite fully formed yet, often skewing heavily toward one side of the equation or the other. That can sometimes give the album a schizophrenic feel; one minute they're sneering punk goddesses, the next they're offering hard-partying odes to rock & roll that could have been ripped from a Runaways record. But even if L7 doesn't quite jell into a cohesive album, visceral moments like opener "Bite the Wax Tadpole" (the Chinese translation of Coca Cola) make it worth investigating by devoted fans of the band's sludgy grind. ~ Steve Huey