At its best, this Madison three-piece puts together an ideally balanced mix of grainy female vocals, sinewy guitar/bass interplay, and direct, visceral, unfussy drumming. The songs are solid, inventive without being too pleased with their own cleverness. The sound is usually dry, clean - kind of a less amphetaminated Albini sound minus the asshole factor. The guitar chords are nicely voiced and work well with the crafty, precision-forged basslines - at times, their playing reminds me of pared-back, less-funked-more-punked version of fellow Madisonians Bucky Pope and Steve Lewis from the Tar Babies. Bugattitype 35 is less effective at the more generic, crunch-laden screamers: "Slab" conveys its lyrics' scattershot condemnation of violence, sexism, corporatism, religious bigotry, and the usual deserving suspects with too-typical overdriven, HAHDKOAH aggression. When singer Wendy's voice rises to a scream in "Killboard," the lyrics' more focused rage against commercialized sexual violence effectively emphasizes the contrast between that scream and her normally more reserved intensity. Though Bugattitype 35 is not at all bluesy in any stereotypical way, something of that intensity, a coiled sense of tension and urgency, breathes through their music, expressed not in flailing catharsis but as a sense of the damage a body can hold, a sense that can be purified into usable anger and determination.

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