The illustration of a naked female body, crucified and spurting blood on the cover of Coral Fang, clues the listener that it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Luckily, Brody Dalle (recently divorced from Rancid/Transplants frontman Tim Armstrong) and her band the Distillers have a knack for combining their pain with energy, attitude and thoughtful compositions.

Opener “”Drain the Blood”” is only half as menacing as it sounds, with just enough bite to temper its modern-rock arrangement. The next few tracks don’t really add anything, weighted down by slick production, but things pick up halfway through. One of the best things about Coral Fang is that it doesn’t ease up with a slow ballad (no offense to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “”Maps”” is the best song on their album). “”The Hunger”” begins sounding like soft Nirvana with throaty vocals and slowly strummed acoustic guitars before breaking into a loud Cobain-like chorus with Dalle’s dead-ringer for Courtney Love voice’s screaming “”Don’t go!”” over a lightning-powered three-chord riff.

The Distillers sound determined to break out of modern punk conventions, even if repetitive beats and guitar sounds can bog down the album on a single listen. They stretch out on the album’s closer “”Death Sex,”” as the band breaks into an aggressive 12-minute noise jam sounding like Sonic Youth with a punk-rock beat.