Texas Platters

Flesh Lights

Named for a torch-shaped rubber vagina, Austin's Flesh Lights pungently encapsulate the sorry state of sexless males with this 12-song scuzz-punk meditation. While the Motards/Chumps are clear hometown antecedents, the trio's loco-motive mash of distorted guitar yaps played out against dramatically garbled shout-along vox and caffeinated surf beats has a hot-pink bubblegum core. That makes a ham-fisted, cunnilingus-alluding love note such as "I Am Romance" soak through like a ripped-jeans riff on the Ohio Express. Muscle Pop's elongated climax, "The Biggest Mistake," introduces collapsing piano runs that embody the compromising roil of hatred and horniness that morphs breakups into life-squandering sagas.