The Gossip

We're not ones to spread rumors, but word has it that the Gossip crew fancies itself the logical offspring of Sleater-Kinney and the White Stripes. Take the gender/sexuality-charged punk of the former (plus Corin Tucker's firehose-at-full-blast-whipping-around-uncontrollably voice) and the calculated half-assed blues of the latter, and you're feeling the "Alabama Heat," this Olympia, Washington trio's new EP. Mostly, you get under-two-minute indie blues jams, unstructured but enthusiastically slapped together. As a finale, they go the opposite direction, finding some garage-rock riff they like, pounding it out for 10 minutes, and slapping the title "(Take Back) the Revolution" on it. The Sleaters and Stripes of the world combine this sort of unabashed enthusiasm with Concepts and Plans and Big Ideas -- things the Gossip dares not trifle with. But so long as they hop onstage and play this as jokey fun and not dead-serious political sloganeering, you'll throw down instead of throwing shoes.