It's become cliché to say that people either love or hate crunk. But after a two-year, Lil Jon-led assault pitting the former Atlanta DJ against the likes of OutKast, Trick Daddy, and E-40, the dictum is sticking less and less to the genre notorious for its signature sirens, call-and-response choruses, and low – and I mean low – bass-riding, ass-forward lyrics. For each minimalist ballad (Ciara's "Goodies") and "crunk&B" single of the year (Usher's "Yeah!") marches a cadre of Lil Jon-engineered club slammers (Ying-Yang Twins' "Salt Shaker" and Petey Pablo's "Freek-a-Leek," to name but two). Fitting, then, that Lil Jon's latest, Crunk Juice, not only slangs some of the year's best crunk but also deftly crunks out styles from Ice Cube's adamantine flow to D.C. go-go.

It's indicative of a genre's robustness that it can parody itself, hard, mid-album with a Dave Chappelle skit and segue into a DJ Flexx joint without missing a beat. Drawing on electronica, Miami bass, and punk, Lil Jon's trademark spaced-out production is in full effect on cuts like "Get Crunk," "Real Nigga Roll Call," and "What U Gon' Do," where sinuous flutes and robotic bass drums handily support eight full-throated, multitracked blasts of "What they gon' do??? / Shit!!!" at every chorus. Lyrical bankruptcy never sounded so rich.

Crunk Juice is for more than genre fans. Beyond its otherworldly screeches and stomps, it scores with the nastiest Rick Rubin guitar work since Jay-Z's "99 Problems" on "Stop Fuckin wit Me," the Neptunes-produced "Stick That Thang Out (Skeezer)," and traditional R&B numbers with Usher and newcomer Oobie. The real pleasure, though, is in hearing Lil Jon's willfully perverse, diesel-powered, crunk-fueled lifers like 8 Ball and MJG and newbies like Nas – so powerful that even the imperturbably smooth Nate Dogg verges on staccato in "Bitches Ain't Shit": "That's why I / Smoke SunDAY MonDAY TuesDAY WednesDAY ThursDAY FriDAY SATurDAY." Now, that's crunk. (Kevin Y. Kim)

Start
Initiation (Nitro)

Rock frontwomen have traditionally borne the burden of filling certain archetypes: the Glamour Girl (Gwen Stefani), the Eccentric (Björk), and the Sweetheart (Jenny Lewis), for example. When the spotlight fades on one, another musician inevitably springs up to fill the vacant category. But since the days when Courtney Love's videos terrorized my nerdy adolescent self, one spot has remained sadly vacant: the Scary Woman.

With a Cruella DeVil hairdo and a skeletal wail, vocalist Aimee Echo powers through such cheerful choruses as "And I might be dead / But I just might be wrong" and "Life is sweet / When you're beat / On your knees" on the Start's Initiation like a zombie version of Yeah Yeah Yeah's singer Karen O and in every respect, she's a fine candidate for the new Scary Woman. The Start's aesthetic may be as slick and trendy as the YYY's, but their sound is a whole other animal. Echo's raucous punk vocals are the tasty, crunchy coating atop layers of lush, effects-heavy guitar riffs and shimmering percussion akin to the streamlined sound of mainstream rock groups like A Perfect Circle. Oddly enough, the dichotomy between these sounds only works in the Start's favor. Although their genre bending makes it difficult to pin down their sound, their glam punk-prog-space rock hybrid balances itself out well. Power chords and weighty guitar jams are kept short and sweet, grounded by Echo's ragged, Save Ferris-style warble. Her voice, in turn, sounds stellar with support from the woozy prettiness of the guitar parts. Long live the Scary Woman. (Leah Freeman)

RTX
The Transmaniacon (Drag City)

Even though it's RTX now and not Royal Trux, Jennifer Herrema has put together an album, The Transmaniacon, that, like any good Trux release, is too weird for the indie rock audience that will be exposed to it and way too weird for the hard/classic/whatever rock world that its primary inspirations come from. I've had it for a month and am just now starting to get comfortable with it; songs are emerging instead of just the overall sound of the album. This is another good sign. All my favorite Trux records took me a year to like.

Because Herrema is reportedly working with a pair of jam rock whippersnappers, it feels like there are parts of the record that translate into the big-time mainstream alt-rock the kids are all into these days, or at least it sounds like that to me, but perhaps that's because I'm wicked old. The best song on here, "PB+J," is exactly like Kid Rock's vocoder-y, Skynyrd-y ballad, "Only God Knows Why," from approximately five years ago.

More than anything, I want Herrema and her new band to freak out the Warped Tour kids, or duet with Ashlee Simpson at the Grammys, or turn into a full-on rap-metal outfit, so that, as a longtime Trux fan, I'm not offended or even surprised by the attempt at reaching the mainstream. The album is just as convoluted and misguided as the best Trux stuff was in a way (BÖC reference, unintelligible vocals, a Heavy Metal Parking Lot-meets-SUV driver vibe). Clearly, Herrema contributed more to what made Royal Trux the coolest band that ever was than she got credit for in the old days. And it doesn't sound like she's trying to prove that, or anything, here. If there's anything MTV needs, it's for Herrema's silently menacing, weird-as-fuck persona to get huge. The best parts of The Transmaniacon sound like a cross between the hip-hop-ish elements of Sweet Sixteen and the compressed, airless rock of Accelerator.

The songs on here with the guy singing are annoying, though. They're unnecessary. Herrema's insanely throaty voice is definitely enough to carry every song, and unless your writing partner is a genius like Neil Hagerty, there's no reason to give a lesser talent the airtime. But fuck it, maybe he'll get better, and we should give him a chance, especially if my (potentially wrong) assumption that the vocalist's a 21-year-old jam rock kid from the woods is right. I tried really hard not to mention Hagerty. (Mike McGuirk)