Album review | CSS | Cansei de Ser Sexy

Meet Lovefoxxx: She’s the art punk It girl we’ve been waiting for all summer, a Brazilian chick who tears up or big-ups Paris Hilton and makes love to I.D.-reading “art bitches” with the careless cool of a cosmopolitan, trust-fund SAIC freshman boozing for free at the Rainbo.

CSS (made up of six adorable twentysomething Brazilians) might be more novel if São Paulo didn’t have a well-documented post-punk history. While that era was inspired by New York’s first punk-funk wave, CSS draws from a satellite’s worth of right-now pop-culture reference points. The band plays perky, primary-colors synthetic pop and punky dance that’s pointed due north, singing almost exclusively in English.

The kids didn’t really know how to play when they started in 2003, but they turn that innocence and instinct for playful recycling into exuberance. Often, CSS sounds as if it’s aping Franz Ferdinand or Ladytron riffs but getting impatient halfway through and surfacing with a purified version. Programmed off-the-rack rhythms (electro, disco or Bikini Kill) help the oversize sextet hold it tight with little dorking around.

Instrumental prowess would be distracting anyway, because this is Lovefoxxx’s show to steal. She’s shooting direct-hit quips like “lick my art tit” and “music is my beach house” (Amen to that, amiga) in every tune. When she asks, “Hey, hey, hey, hey, do you wanna drink some alcohol?,” we want in.