Yeah, we'd heard the buzz on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the female-fronted New York trio being touted as the next Strokes or whatever. Then we actually heard Yeah Yeah Yeahs, their recently reissued 2001 five-song EP. Suffice it to say we were a tad underwhelmed, finding it too arty and coy by half. If only some of the hype being heaped on the YYYs would be redirected toward the Paybacks (above), a chick-led garage outfit from Detroit. The Paybacks' debut disc, Knock Loud (Get Hip), is everything we'd hoped the YYYs' album would be: raucous and hooky. Singer-guitarist Wendy Case (a journalist by day, but we won't hold it against her) is blessed with a gravelly, in-your-face voice of the sort we last heard emanating from Janis Joplin, and the band is obviously way conversant with Stooges-style psycho-soul. As Case says of Knock Loud: "This album was made by people who really love rock & roll." To which we can only add, "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" --Tom Sinclair
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