Love the Cup (Domino), the debut EP by Glasgow quartet SONS & DAUGHTERS, was filled with twanging guitars, bleak lyrical themes, and boom-chicka-boom beats–a fitting approach for a band that named a song after Johnny Cash. But though they still kick up some sawdust on their first full-length album, The Repulsion Box (Domino), they’re hardly hemmed in stylistically. The stuttering guitar that drives “Medicine,” the junkie’s lament that opens the album, sounds like it was lifted from an Ex tune; the tale of a runaway bride in “Red Receiver” is set to an acoustic skiffle shuffle; and the anthemic “Taste the Last Girl” echoes early Blondie. The album was produced by Victor Van Vugt, who’s worked with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, and recorded in Cologne at Conny Plank’s studio, home to many Brian Eno and Kraftwerk sessions in the 70s. You might expect some record-geek reverence given those circumstances, but there’s nothing studied about Adele Bethel’s vein-bursting guitar leads or the band’s precise, fiery playing. –Bill Meyer
