Ruy Blas!
Rah Bras (Lovitt)

Thank God for Richmond, VA’s Rah Bras. They’re a synth band that rocks, hard. With a dark, massive, pop-opera-type sound and perfectly overwrought male and female vocals, Rah Bras manage to rival the glorious stupidity that is "Slow Ride," plus they’re artier and faggier than any of those other bands.

Instead of coolly sensual murmurings, tag-team vocalists Isabellarah Rubella and Jean Rah give up yowls, whispers, moans and freaky little chirps. Instead of melancholy lyrics about lovers who never really connect, we get, "I put my hand on your knee/and you say d’you wanna see/I put my hand on your thigh/and you say d’you wanna try" (from "Gently Jean Rah"). On Ruy Blas!, the band’s new (short) full-length after two (short) EPs, the sound ranges from harsh, martial and anthemic, with chants that could accompany the frenzied crowd scenes in Metropolis, to lush, lovely and implausibly ethereal. Isabellarah coaxes a very broad variety of noises from her synth, including plane-like drones and whines and whirling sounds you’d swear were guitars, if Rah Bras didn’t have a policy of "no guitars, ever!" Even at its prettiest Ruy Blas! still buzzes ominously just under the surface.

Driving, pounding, campy and slightly gross (on the opener, "Bababoon," Jean Rah sings about how the title creature "sucked a baby right from its womb," to which Isabellarah replies, "you don’t know Bababoon/he was my love/he made me swoon") Rah Bras are the perfect antidote to prefab retro-futuristic synth-twaddle. Though they’ve played on bills with practitioners of the above they’ve also opened for more unconventional or tongue-in-cheek acts like the Ruins and the Country Teasers. The album art shows all three band members (Boo Rah plays bass and Jean Rah drums) sucking, chewing and biting on various, uh, stuff while Jean alternately blows bubbles and wields a sword. Both boys wear more makeup than Isabellarah.

Sure, there are slight misfires here, like "Civic," whose textures are a shade too unrelievedly pretty for my taste. Toward the end of the album Rah Bras seem to run out of steam just a bit. But these are picky jabs at a band whose "Scoop Toe Pump Girls" and "Arty O the Irst Art" have 10 times more balls, energy and wit than Chicks on Speed’s anemic "Warm Leatherette." Here’s hoping Rah Bras become the next bandwagon/fashion trend.