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"All right, motherfuckers,” Traci Trouble said. “We’re The Wanton Looks.” With that, just before midnight on Friday at Live Wire, the band ignited into a huge version of “Demons,” a song good enough to be played for as long as the band exists.

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But we’re getting ahead ourselves here. Right now, The Wanton Looks are on the verge of putting out their first album. It’s going to be great and I haven’t even listened to it yet. I can write that because I’ve heard the songs during a handful of compelling concerts by the local band over recent months in various dive bars around the city. The Wanton Looks are a lit fuse traveling toward an explosion.

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Lead singer and bassist Traci Trouble, drummer Meg Thomas and guitarists Inga Olson and Susie Q are like the illegitimate children of The Runaways and The Ramones. They rock with the former’s cocksure attitude and the latter’s kind of potent, succinct songs. Trouble is the group’s fearless leader. She was focused and at the top of her powers, and the rest of the band responded in kind. Thomas is the musical wiz of the band, and normally her drumming helps set the band, as well as herself, apart. But in this show the guitars of Olson and Susie Q were the most prominent I’ve heard them, and they matched Thomas’ hits. This was the loudest and, perhaps not coincidently, the best I’ve heard The Wanton Looks sound.

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The show was less than an hour, but contained more than its share of moments…Trouble’s singing and cathartic yells on “Cut Off,” dedicated to the unemployed. Thomas’ drum lesson at the end of “Get Thru To You.” Susie Q working the stage, engaging her bandmates and sending sparks flying. Olson slumped over in front of the tall amp behind her, listening to the feedback she was creating at the end of “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah” as she was seemingly oblivious that the rest of the band had concluded the song. A dizzying trip into sinister metal on “Neverending.” The final song, “Electromagnetic Force,” ended with Trouble on her knees, the neck of her bass pointing high and her head thrown back as she bathed in the glorious noise around her.

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Before the show, Trouble said The Wanton Looks’ debut album will contain 12 songs. It will be mastered next month. Then the band will have to decide how it’ll be distributed. “It’ll be worth the wait,” she said.

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Believe it.

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The setlist:

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Demons

86 Me

Get Thru To You

I Wanna See You Again

All I Want Is You

Forget You

Worst Side of Me

Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

Cut Off

All Your Fault

Neverending

Electromagenetic Force

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Start: 11:55 p.m./Finish: 12:40 a.m.

Totals: 12 songs, 45 minutes

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The Wanton Looks

July 22, 2011 @ Live Wire

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The Wanton Looks

July 22, 2011 @ Live Wire

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