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iTunes Review

The Montreal quartet Duchess Says reaches way back into punk history, its music evoking bands from both the New York No Wave scene and the hallowed halls of Britain’s finest art-school post-punkers. The band's sound is steeped in 40 years of outsider rock, from Can and The Red Crayola to the original post-punk and new wave scenes, on to contemporary bands like Ponytail and Deerhoof. Singer Annie-Claude Deschênes reaches down deep for her tortured howls and shrieks of frustration and indignation. (Or, perhaps, elation. Her lyrics—sung in English and French—are ciphers, and her voice is often used more as instrumental effect.) Wresting surprisingly danceable, memorable rhythms out of chaos on songs like “Narcisse,” “Gainsbourg,” and “S.O.H.,” the band also trusts that chaos to take the lead on noisier tunes like “Subtraction of Obedience” and the sublime “Antepoc” (where corrosive synths belch and bleat, bass lines pound and ping like rubber balls, and even the drumkit sweats bullets). Deschênes seems to leave her body–and the stage–during live shows, giving herself over to certain demons.