THE PHANTOM LIMBS

The Phantom Limbs could not have chosen their appellation more carefully. Squalling about forgone appendages and carnival nightmares, lead singer Hopeless is the skeletal storyteller with the self-destructive vocal chords who propels the Limbs' rock 'n' roll monster, but it is Stevenson Sedgwick's amphetamine-driven chapel organ that gives the Limbs soul. This is rock music found in the depths of a catacomb and brought to shuddering, swirling life by Dr. Frankenstein's electrical psychosis. Thus amply fueled by static and doom, the Phantom Limbs tear apart old men and innocent babes with snarling rhythms and lurching melodies, both maddening and thrilling to those who have outgrown punk rock and goth but still shroud themselves in grainy black-and-white.