Dead Sara

Dead Sara’s eponymous 2012 debut album opens with Emily Armstrong’s impassioned vocals soaring soulfully over Siouxsie Medley’s thundering guitar riffs and jangling six-string melodies. The band’s driving rhythm section—drummer Sean Friday and bassist Chris Null—have their work cut out for them in backing up Medley’s sonic storms. But they pull it off with powerful propulsion, as on the hard-hitting “Weatherman”: a salient slice of hard rock barely tempered by Armstrong, whose varied vocal style is well spotlighted here. She sings soulfully in the verses before howling with raspy abandon in the chorus. The song is such a sonic juggernaut that when the following ballad, “Dear Love,” starts, it nearly sounds like a completely different band (until everyone ramps up the refrain). Pulling from country, indie, and hard rock, “Timed Blues” best exemplifies why Dead Sara can’t be shoehorned into a single genre.