Album Review: Strawberry by Wussy

Cincinnati's Wussy play hard-boiled, shabbily tuneful indie rock about relationships and middle-age ennui that might be look-the-other-way uncomfortable, if it weren’t so suck-you-in good. Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker are a married couple who evoke marriage on the edge of collapse – "Your head is pounding much too hard to change your mind/And I've got time to kill without you in the way," Walker sings on "Fly Fly Fly." Their fourth album is their most compellingly dire-sounding, not as grabby as their 2005 debut, Funeral Dress, but rocking out in a frayed, mordant way that makes every stick-in-your-head chorus they share seem like a small triumph. Listen to "Fly Fly Fly": Related• Photos: Random Notes .

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The 12th year of the 21st Century finds the Cincinatti rock phenomenon known as Wussy moving into their second decade as a band. Looking back, their first 10 years can be looked upon as a paradigm for the progression of a successful band: a string of solid releases that retains its core singing and songwriting bedrock while playing increasing larger rooms to greater acclaim. It seems easy, but few bands of late have managed to achieve their station with such modest grace.

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The Cincinnati-based quartet Wussy continue to make a strangely attractive racket on their third album. Still co-led by singer/songwriters Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker, the band often sounds like it's trying for roots rock and missing -- not that there's anything wrong with that. "Gone Missing" evokes the Primitives with its tuneful but rough-edged guitar jangle; "Dreadful Sorry" is constructed like a country weeper with bipolar disorder, what with its aggressively rockish guitar draped all over the slide guitar and mandolin.

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