Whirlwind Heat, with the Kills and the Singles

Rearrange the letters in "Whirlwind Heat" very slightly and you get White and Whirl, which is a pretty good way to describe the Michigan band's über-Caucasian indie/art rock. It also could work as shorthand for the project -- Jack White produced the album and I'm sure there are some who call the band simply Whirl. And it also removes the word "heat" from the equation -- which is also definitely addition by subtraction, for this trio's frigid sound is anything but hot. Then there's the whole color thing -- all of the songs on their new album, Do Rabbits Wonder?(Do they? Dammit! I've got to know!), are named after colors.

The picture the band scrawls with this poor kid's crayon box of 13 songs is of a dorky skeleton dancing to Devo. Sludgy guitars and farty bass and whiny caterwauling vocals occasionally recede into the background to make way for the band's best feature: the off-the-hook Moog synthesizer solos of singer David Swanson. Bluesy London punkers the Kills and Detroit pop-rockers/Cotton Mather acolytes the Singles also appear.