Montigola Underground

(Devil in the Woods)

Some records change your life. A few more make a given year's top 10 or, at the other end of the spectrum, earn immediate and vengeful destruction. Most are simply mediocre.

And then there are the CDs that simultaneously repel and attract, giving their listener equal cause for irritation or exultation. Take, for instance, Montigola Underground, the latest release from Norwich, England's KaitO.

"Go," the last track on this seven-track EP, epitomizes the group's brash, no-holds-barred pop, melding bratty Bikini-Kill-style female vocals with blaring keyboards, punky backup chants and bursts of random guitar noise.

At a time when most "punk" bands are groomed and polished to a glossy, candy-apple sheen, KaitO's willingness to skip the B.S. and simply rock out is a breath of fresh air. Next to the garage-born vitality of tracks like "Go" or "Sweet Allie," the overproduced mush that passes for commercial rock these days sounds like non-alcoholic beer next to a shot of rye whiskey.

There's a fine line between garage-rock energy, however, and sounding like you just picked your instrument up for the first time. Amateurism is fine for amateurs, and if KaitO were a new band, I could excuse it's occasional lapse into incessant, bleating noise. But the group has been around six years, presumably more than enough time to master the fundamentals of three-chord garage pop.

The group's rawness is a nice break from Blink 182, but eschewing polish doesn't have to mean sounding like a reject from a high school battle of the bands.