Magic Dirt

Having toured America numerous times during the mid to late 1990s, it's half-surprising this Aussie band didn't apply for U.S. citizenship. Leading the sonic charge is frontwoman Adalita, whose piercing caterwauling defines the band's nightmare-inducing sound as aptly as the fuzz-drenched noise with which it cat-fights. It's both powerful and fearsome -- and that's in the literal sense, as in something to be feared.