Female vocalists who veer away from the soft underbelly of pop-rock really have my heart. They are simply the best because it takes real courage to shed the moniker of singer-songwriter and rock or roll hard and well.

More importantly, it takes one hell of a performer, with one hell of a band, to sing the way that singer Christine Mascott of The Drop Band does in their fourth release, entitled There's Only Sound. This record is so freaking good, it's unbelievable.

The thing is, The Drop Band is not just rock. It's the blues, it's unsappy sentiment, it's punk, it's folk (especially in "There's Only Sound"), it's Garbage, it's Letters to Cleo, it's Hole, it's the Lunachicks, it's every powerful band that houses an enormously talented female lead singer.

A guy once said to me, "See, my plan is working like a charm. You were destined for better things than I could ever give you". It makes me sad to know that The Drop Band could be in store for the same fate, a sort of floating ambivalence in the recording industry. And it just shouldn't be the case, because they, simply put, are incredible. The music just sticks with you for days.

Mascott laments in "Blue": "Of rose colored days/I broke up from the riddle and I close up again/and now I'm sad and so bad." I would have said just that very line, if I had half the courage to be bad, and deliciously good, that The Drop Band has.

www.dropband.com