Empties

This killer little record is the perfect slab to turn your ordinary wild party into an orgiastic bash of excess and mayhem. Dosage — they spells it Dóusid 3, but it's much easier to type this way — is a Japanese-born, New York-based recording act who has been influenced by virtually every kind of underground club and rock music. A power trio featuring Yutaka Kawana on guitar and vocals, Sayoko on bass and vocals, and someone named Buz on drums, this little trio packs a wallop. Whether they are engaging the trip-hop, slippery dub pop of Portishead as they do on "Vanilla," or the power riffing of Motorhead with the sonic vocal hybrids employed by both Chrome and the Butthole Surfers, as on "Seemless," the effect is the same: mind-boggling. The band's anthem is "We Copy," a crazy amalgam of Ted Nugent riffs, drum machines, loops, and enough distortion to kill an elephant; but they sell themselves short. If anything, their power rock, dub in clubland sound is as original as anything popular culture can throw at a wall. But there's more: In addition to plenty of attitude, they can actually play like a mutha. Check out the rhythmic interplay on "Wanna Be Trapped" where a trap kit and various sound effects become the melodic framework for the tune, escorting Sayoko's voice through the maze of shimmering feedback and delicious drum loops and gives way to overdriven guitar scree. Or better yet, the two closing tracks, "Digital Abuse" and "Feasting on Butterflies," utilize postmodern technology and the advances made in pop music by electronica and reclaim them for power rock. But perhaps the very best thing you can say about Dosage is that there isn't another band on the planet — at least on record — that sounds remotely like them.