And you thought Chicks on Speed liked The B-52's. The Rogers Sisters — two actual sisters, aided by one, like, dude on bass — start up a New Yorker new-wave party out of bounds on their debut disc, taking skeletal garage-rock form and dancing this mess around with all kinds of anthemic enthusiasm. With their tunes kept to the unfettered drumbeaten beats, things are kept clean enough for the combo to have a whole lot of fun. Jennifer Rogers works that skirt as frontman, eking out spindly, staccato guitar lines like she's downpicking Morse-code. She and bassist Miyuki Furtado swap comically screechin' Fred/Kate vocals, hilariously sung in snotty voices and often played off each other in argumentative one-of-these-days straight-to-the-moon fashion. And fashion may be a big part of the Rogers Sisters' shtick; but, hailing from halfway around the globe, I find it hard to say without actually seeing the kind of threads they deck out in (although one could guess). From hearing the combo's highly-strung songs on this record, it'd seem like the whole thing is one big exercise in highly-styled reverie. There are definite times here where the trio like to make like they're presiding over some ecstatic soul revival, and that they're not just the latest light-footed revisionists dancing in that neo-new-wave way. Somewhat strangely, these Rogers Sisters were the same Rogers sisters who did duty in Cynthia Nelson's pre-Retsin quiet-to-loud shout-rock combo Ruby Falls, who were just as earnest and opaque as this new gig is obnoxious and clean-lined.
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