Nobody will mistake The Phantom Limbs for the nation's newest cuddly pop band -- especially given menacing, blood-strewn artwork and a title like Random Hymns. Although their spindly metallic resolve is in line with the current post-punk zeitgeist, their fervid tales of android sexuality and 21st century love gone astray run cold enough to make even the giddiest of hearts seize up in defeat.

"The Olympics" and "Topanga Canyon Torture" dwell in a realm of dark misogyny, their bawdy tempos and filthy lyrical gems ("powers are gleamin / showers of semen") oozing out from behind (lead singer) Hopeless's snotty stutter and Jason Miller's lacerating guitar lines. They rumble unabashedly along paths of depraved indifference and hi-watt new-wave bluster until they stumble upon "Jackalope Rising", a stunning seven and a half minute sound collage/dirge that splices B-Movie dialogue, Snoop and insect noises into a ear-rupturing cavalcade of post-modern whimsy and ironic posturing. Closer "Cobrador Minutero" is almost as brilliant, with a stab of triumphant brass sawing its way through vaudevillian cadences and wheezing accordion.

Give The Phantom Limbs credit for taking post-punk to tawdry new lows, and salute them for creating music that won't appeal to the mainstream, even if it were given a spangly Britney enema and a truckload of Puma gear. Here's to being starving and damn proud of it.