Local H: Twelve Angry Months

Think you've had a bad year? Get a load of Local H's. On Twelve Angry Months, the Chicago alt-rock duo flips through its calendar and recalls 365 days' worth of lousy dates, psycho girlfriends and sleepless nights. Over a dozen songs that sound like they time-warped from another decade (the mid-'90s, to be specific), frontman Scott Lucas tears through lines like "Could you do me a favor? Fall off the earth" and "I hope you have a lonely life" with barely suppressed rage. Twelve Angry Months chronicles the ups and downs of a particularly volatile relationship, in which Lucas gets dumped for a "BMW Man," becomes suicidal in the twangy "The Summer of Boats" and finally moves on in eight-­minute closer "Hand to Mouth." The music sounds like Nirvana; the singer sounds like a man at the end of his rope.