Cindy Lee
Malenkost (Isolated Now Waves)

Despite the occasional paint-stripping peal of distortion, Cindy Lee’s recent Act of Tenderness LP was mostly filled with beautiful bedside ballads. Singer-guitarist Patrick Flegel hasn’t exactly pulled a 180 with Malenkost, the project’s second full-length release of 2015, but the sister release finds his feathery falsetto backed by decidedly fuzzier textures.

“No Worth No Cost”, for instance, opens things with a gnarly and near-atonal twin guitar melody, while “Hopeless in a Trance” is a fabulously junky garage-rock piece full of off-time drum fills. “Coroner of the State” sounds as if someone set up a dictaphone in a jam-space hallway, picking up both a distant cover of the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting for the Man” and a no-wave roller coaster of biffed notes. And yet, the chaotic blend sounds miraculously cohesive.

Though often raucous, Cindy Lee also plays it quiet on Malenkost. “Always Lovers” is another heart-sinking strummer from Flegel, while the act flirts with tranquil, Aquarius-age psychedelia on “Claim of Vanity”. Late album highlight “Prayer of Baphomet” could be the sweetest occult incantation ever laid to tape.

Though Cindy Lee has cranked it up a bit for Malenkost, the album’s bared-teeth approach still reveals a tender smile.