Blend of Alterna-Rock Is a Debut to Relish

Knowing that The Times’ copy desk, which writes the headlines, won’t be able to resist cooking up something yummy-sounding to top this review, I’ll just say it: Hot dog! (Dear desk: this still leaves “Relish Cuts the Mustard” . . . oops).

Yes, “Relish” is a tasty introduction to this Orange County alterna-rock trio, which brings a whole condiment tray of talent to the table.

Michele Walker, the bassist and primary lead singer, has an attractive yet nervously cutting voice that quickly calls to mind Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses. It’s well-suited to the troubled interior monologues rendered in these songs, and if the churning rocker, “Flesh and Kings” and the stark acoustic song, “Castle or a Hole” sound like Hersh outtakes, well, one of the first things to look for on a debut release such as this is an instinct for enlightened theft.

Laurita Guaico emerges as an instant garage-rock guitar heroine as she dips into the ‘60s for some psychedelic wailing and buzzing and Stooges-style primitive raw power, then leaps ahead for flings with Sonic Youth-style college-rock noise and feedback and a touch of Cobain-esque grunge riffing.

Drummer Lynnae Hitchcock has the knack of sounding crude and nimble at the same time, a valuable credential for a garage rocker. She also plays the accordion and electric piano, dabbed onto a couple of tracks for spooky effect. All three sing, and a strong harmony blend accents appealing melodies.

The nine songs on “Relish” offer a little of this and a little of that. The troubled interiors form the core, but the band tests other possibilities. The stately, cry-to-the-wind big-ballad, “Bled,” sounds like a female approximation of Pearl Jam.

A surprising turn toward smoldering blues-rock turns up near the album’s end with the “House of the Rising Sun”-like dirge “Alone.”

On “Born Again,” the craft and control that reign elsewhere give way to that Stooges rawness, complete with a drawled, slurry, attitude-filled vocals. The song seems intended as a sardonic poke at people who take refuge from their woes in religion, but it also captures the ecstatic-unto-erotic dimension of some forms of religious connection.

Someone in the band lets out a fighting-cat screech at the end in fitting celebration of a very hot performance that calls to mind Sleater-Kinney, the vibrant female trio from Oregon and Washington state.

Some of Relish’s themes would have been labeled feminist back before feminism fell out of grace with young women who owe many of their opportunities and legal protections to it.

“Uncomfortable Silence” is a terse and chilling glimpse at how media-driven definitions of what’s desirable in women’s appearances distort them on the inside. “Perfection is my violence,” Walker sings at the start, and there’s no sense in the song’s final surge and ominous, abrupt stop that she has found a more realistic, less self-defeating standard for herself than perfection.

“Castle or a Hole” depicts a woman desperately wishing, in a literal and figurative sense, for a room of one’s own.

Other than the Pearl Jam moves, every direction hinted at on this introduction to Relish bears further exploration.

(Available from Amerige Records, P.O. Box 1382, Fullerton, CA 92836; (714) 562-6765. Web: www.colgreen.com/relish/; E-mail: relish--[email protected].)

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four stars (excellent).

Mike Boehm can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].