Kimya Dawson

"Mommy and Daddy, your baby is grown," she overtaxes her child-soprano to proclaim at the end of the first song. "This isn't a come-on, but come on, let's face it/The come on your face is really just mayonnaise," she singsongs flatly in the hooked-on-phonics second. "The air is filled with computers and carpets/Skin and bones and telephones and file cabinets," she whispers dreamily in the anthrax-nightmare fifth. There's a song about small-town hell and a song about alcoholic hell and a song about how cool it is not wanting to be cool, and then the invention wears down a bit. I note disdainfully that her first CDR-gone-legit had better homemade music and no one noticed, I warn that the simultaneously released Knock-Knock Who? is as insular as boors will think this one is, I insist that these are major songs, and I hope she's just getting started. (Grade - A-)