An outpouring of punk emotion in eleven musical bites, “Twelve Nudes” exhausts but sticks in the mind. I’d never come across Ezra Furman before but here she expunges all her heart and mind into bite-sized morsels that scream across the sky. Despair at the state of Trumpian America is the dominant harshness, ameliorated beautifully by a singalong sense of melody. Her hoarse shriek is inexplicably exhilarating. Highlights include the blistering two minutes of “Thermometer,” incandescent opener “Calm Down aka I Should Not Be Alone,” the naïve political brilliance of “In America,” and her liberation anthem, “What Can You Do But Rock ‘n’ Roll.” But really, let this short album wash over you again and again, you’ll not be disappointed.
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