Light This City

Fronted by iron maiden Laura Nichol, Light This City plays mesmerizing dual-guitar harmonies that recall power-metal's prime. This San Francisco band combines the type of drum-driven thrash popular in the Bay Area around the time most of its members were born (average age: 21), with melodies carried entirely by guitar leads, never the vocals. Nichol's delivery, a fierce, python-garroted rasp, renders it impossible for uninitiated listeners to identify her as a woman, let alone one of the "Hottest Chicks in Metal" (as christened by Revolver earlier this year). Last year's Facing The Thousand experiments with mid-tempo marches, which make its double-time eruptions seem impossibly fast by comparison.