A Band of Bitches is Mexico's newest party trio, comprised of Fex, Fuk Dude, and Pace. They perform in masks and dress like lounge lizards. There is also a very popular rumor about some of their members actually being in Plastilina Mosh. On the band's Facebook page, they list their influences as Jesús, Napoleon Bonaparte, Attila the Hun, Akhenaten, Constantine, Muhammad Bin Saud, Nelson Mandela, Copernicus, Fidel Castro, Karol Wojtyla, Rasputin, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and so on. They describe their music as "soft porn rock" -- which is, as near as can be discerned, a meld of '80s pop, disco, funk, indie rock, and global dance music. Their debut, The Pre End of the World Soundtrack, is, by their own admission, a complete marketing tool. Despite the serious narration on the opening "The Maussan Archives," and song titles such as "Love in Gaza," "Guerra Nuclear," and "Confidential Information," almost all of these songs are about having a good time in the extreme. Forget Prince's "1999," this is partying guerilla style in the post-global warming era of nuclear fallout and survivalist chic. Check the hit lead single and video "Noreste Caliente," which is an explosive banda anthem about 45 kinds of beer. "Track 3:14" (which is 5:15), uses colliding rock guitars, heavily vocodered vocals on the chorus, and rapping; "Rock "n" Roll Is Obscene" is loaded with crazy double entendres -- Rock & Roll is not referred to as a bad thing -- and disco-fried, old-school club jams, while closing cut, "Stephanie Swift," is an X-rated paean to the former porn actress complete with a repetitive funk vamp, classical interludes, and breakbeats. That said, there are some serious knowledge chops, as evidenced in the Steely Dan-meets-Tito Puente groove of "Mambo en Trompete para Ti." Tracks are alternately sung in Spanish or English. The Pre End of the World Soundtrack is an intentionally provocative, hedonistic, and musically engaging offering from a band that we can only hope tours the globe and drops more of their lunatic mythos on us in the future.

Thom Jurek, Rovi