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As frontwoman for NYC world-pop dervish Gang Gang Dance, Lizzi Bougatsos brings considerable powers to bear. On stage, she's a shimmying study in captivated allure: a postpunk minx vibing out on the glossy-eyed, post-everything stew brewing behind her with liquidy ululations that frequently conclude in splashy exclamation marks. But as half of I.U.D.--with Growing member Sadie Laska--Bougatsos upsets that image. It's unclear whether I.U.D.'s debut The Proper Sex refers specifically to gender or coital action. What's certain is that with the stags-in-the-headlights confrontational Sex, Bougatsos and Laska aren't out to ingratiate or titillate.

After "Daddy"--with its hiccuping, unintelligible incantations, masticated-synth dribble-downs, and dub grooves--kicks things off beguilingly, Sex gets really confused, warping into industrial-rock sadism. On "Glo Balls," Bougatsos' vocals emerge as distended samples, while brute-force drum beats pummel pulsing scraps of hyperventilating synthesizer. "Monk Hummer" mood-swings from drum-kit teeth-barring to a hellishly distorted flood of samples to metronomic detonations to a critical mass blitzkrieg of all three. "Girls Just Wanna (Time To Have Sex)" offers what seems at first to be an outstretched hand: stormy, jagged heavy metal guitars. But it reveals itself to be a closed feminist's fist--a crunchy riff that's repeated ad infinitum even as it's cut, slowed, screwed, and chopped into 11 fuck-you minutes, with Bougatsos' fearsome cries erupting now and again. "Women! Time to have seeeeeeeeex," she exhorts, calling an invisible coterie to arms. That crotch twinge you hetero dudes are feeling? That's your testicles shriveling into nothing.