… Unsigned, unsafe, unusually well-mannered

Lead singer Marc LaBelle isn’t screaming just because he can. On the band’s self-titled debut LP, LaBelle’s artistry ebbs and flows. His delicate falsetto is sensitive and his dark, harrowing accents are torturous in a first-rate way. Perfection may be last on LaBelle’s list leaving the irony of it all, how perfect each score sounds.

Fellow Dirty Honey bandmates are equally risky with an abrasive swagger that’s anything but reserved. The boss quartet is in the deep end of the water on nearly every track, up to the neck of a sunburst Les Paul in unsafe musical territory while the melodies remain unusually well-mannered. It’s a righteous awakening for both the performer and the listener.

Despite the sensuality of their Dirty Honey nomenclature, members within this hard rock classification are genuinely decent musicians personally and professionally. Outside the sphere of amps, pedals and all things edgy, lies the most dangerous thing about Dirty Honey — the band remains unsigned and absent from record label intervention.

Creative control affords guitarist John Notto an avenue for expression which runs throughout the record. And in no way does it underestimate what bassist Justin Smolian and drummer Corey Coverstone bring to the table. Just when you assume the rock is too dense or haunting for a hot summer day at the beach, Notto channels his inner 1960s with the album’s perkiest “Gypsy” (a faint throwback to The Ventures “Wipe Out”), only proving he can still play louder, harder and faster.

It ends with a slowly decaying romance (“She burns like a whiskey/she cries like rain”), an afterthought compared to the seven, blinding snowstorms that precede it. Regardless, not a single song is out of tune or out of place.

Dig in at www.dirtyhoney.com.