How We Quit the Forest is the third release from the "neo- chamber grunge" trio Rasputina. And even though the inlay book teems with pretty pictures of elves and cute little woodland creatures, be forewarned: This ain't no fairy tale, kiddies. (Unless your fairy tales involve Rose Kennedy and the herb girls of Birkenau, in which case you need to run, not walk, to the nearest pharmacy and refill your medication.)

Giving their cello strings poundings they won't soon forget, Rasputina fuse the classical and the modern in a most intriguing way (and what other band in music today totes 32 pairs of grubby stockings, 21 shirtwaists and 10 corsets along with them on tour?) Cellist and vocalist Melora Creager's vocals alternate between delicate vibrato- ridden purrs and catlike yowlings, especially on cuts like "LeechWife" the surprisingly- danceable "The Olde Headboard."

Thematically, the band is as inherently dark and eerie as ever (an appropriate soundtrack for upcoming Halloween shindigs) and their lyrics are, as always, full of the sort of calculating venom exemplified by their seething cover of Lesley Gore's classic "You Don't Own Me." The Victorian regalia in which they bind themselves runs quite contradictory to the decidedly un-Victorian characters they encounter (Space Ghost, anyone?), but that's all part of their charm. Like ghosts of yourself from a past life, so are the girls of Rasputina.

-Susan Moll

"The Olde Headboard"

[Real Audio Stream]