Pitchfork

It's been almost two years of bad haircuts and reluctant dance moves since The Rogers Sisters' Purely Evil LP. In that time, the New York hipster gestalt has reached a feverish, pogoing pitch and bounced into the arms of an almost religiously unoriginal rehash of garage-rock and new-wave. The Rogers Sisters are following suit. With Three Fingers, the Sisters-- true siblings Jennifer (guitar/vocals) and Laura (drums/vocals), plus the ambiguous Miyuki Furtado (bass/vocals)-- have done little to alter their twangy Pylon-meets-B52's wigout, producing seven songs of hurry-up offense that strike quickly but barely stay in the game.

The music is still catchy, still adrenalized: Furtado's manic Motherbaughian bark cuts like a razor and is countered warmly by the Sisters' shiny harmonies. But the sad point is, there isn't a lot of progress to make for a band so deeply rooted in a nostalgia that most twentysomethings can only appreciate second-hand. They're at their best when the two vocal forces-- Furtado and Jennifer Rogers-- spar playfully between verse and chorus. Opener "Freight Elevator" is the best example of that inconsistent mojo, an open-handed slap war between vocalists that reaches satisfying critical mass at its final moments. But when Furtado goes it alone, the band's flimsy façade is obvious. The predictable "Prayers" has little going for it, and "Check Level", with its "Time for Livin'" riff and ferocious shout-along breakdown, doesn't leave a mark. Over Laura Rogers' metronomic banging and Jennifer's patently angular guitar, Furtado exclaims, "We're the voice/ The voice of America!" Not exactly, but at least the voice of headstrong, self-referential mimeography.

The album fares better where Jennifer's rigid vocals are featured. She gives "The Secrets of Civilization" a fun, spastic performance, but after an interesting flanged-drum opener, sister Laura settles into a lackluster beat. In a trio setting like this, if one element doesn't hold up the wheels come off the cart; in this case Laura Rogers' lockstep drumming is the culprit.

When Jennifer unleashes the tribal grind "Fantasies Are Nice", the band's potential glimmers briefly. Here, Laura's by-the-numbers drumwork actually pays off, a flock of honking sax jangles the nerves, and Laura's talk/sing vocals hit home. But even though the subject matter is clever, and somewhat relevant, it still harps on the same themes as Purely Evil-- mindless overconsumption, delusional stockpiling, etc. It's 2004; the deficiencies of a market-driven economy have been hammered home by far more convincing voices.

At just over 20 minutes, Three Fingers barely achieves velocity before grinding to a halt. Either there's a lack of ideas here or this is the band's idea of tightly-strung precision. Either way, the flashbulbs don't linger long. Like most post-punk acts, The Rogers Sisters probably make a much more stimulating live show than their album suggests-- there's no lack of energy here, only a novel way of presenting it.