Chalk it up to MTV saturation, glossy magazine fashion spreads or plain ol' hype overkill, but the latest crop of garage/art/blues-rock bands don't have quite the same sloppy subversiveness of their ancestors. What's missing underneath their vintage threads and three-chord patchworks is a sense of danger, the feeling that one well-timed snarl could scatter children to hide behind their mothers' aprons or send fathers to lock up their teen-age daughters. Thankfully, New Zealand's Datsuns -- its members all surnamed Datsun, in true Ramones fashion -- inject this type of peril into today's scene with electrified jolts of "Dazed and Confused"-style heavy-metal arrogance. Dolf De Datsun howls like a man possessed by demons, whether he's begging his generic "Lady" to take him back or wailing about how another temptress makes him feel like an "MF From Hell." Carrie Smith and Marcie Bolen of Detroit rockers the Von Bondies arrive to add bored backup sass and feminine wiles to the band's swinging single "In Love," but in concert, there will be no tempering the testosterone stream.
