Negative charisma has been a staple of rock from Jerry Lee Lewis to Courtney Love. With its latest album "No! No! No!" (Trattoria), Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her takes it to a whole new level.

Singer, songwriter and guitarist Aiha Higurashi has always had attitude to burn and on this release, she fully displays the musical chops to back it up.

The first three cuts of "No! No! No!" are arguably the most exciting 10 minutes of music to come out of Japan this year. Higurashi's guitar lays into hooks like a chain saw with a cool frenzy that recalls Runaways-era Joan Jett or the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion with better songs and high heels. "I could be a star," growls Higurashi on the opening track, "No Star," and if this album is any evidence, she is one step closer to that goal.

Credit goes to producer Zak (Beastie Boys, Buffalo Daughter and Fishmans) and mastering superstar Howie Weinberg -- both help make this the most fully realized Seagulls album yet. (Check the credits of just about any major rock release and Weinberg's name is likely to be there.)

The extra help has added a sense of focus often lacking in previous albums, which tended to be a touch too long and a bit too flabby. Higurashi's voice has benefited in particular. It is the band's chief asset, and here it has been mixed to just-out-of-bed creaminess.

The Seagulls have always been essentially Higurashi's project, a vehicle for her explosive feminine wiles. With the departure of drummer Takape Karashima, the former trio's token shot of testosterone, the group's feline girlishness has been distilled to its purest essence. Bassist Nao Koyama's coy, breathy vocals, a contrast to Higurashi's wilder, bluesy style, have been brought to the fore, as has the band's continual teasing of female iconography.

If the whore has always had a place in the Seagulls' pantheon, Higurashi's recent motherhood has added a little of the maternal. In lyrics of haikulike simplicity (in Higurashi's case this is a choice rather than a result of poor English) she dissects the tension between the two opposites. The character in "Motorpsycho" wants to get high and be a mother or as the title of one cut explains, "Guitar for me and milk for her."

This kind of brash honesty has been a rarity in Japanese rock, which is one reason Higurashi continues to strike a chord, especially with young women. It is an appeal that has the potential to stretch beyond Japan. The band recently returned from a tour of Taiwan where they were treated, according to Higurashi, "like the Rolling Stones."

If the Seagulls can maintain the sort of velocity they manifest on this album, this comparison might be sound in more ways than one.

Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her, July 22 at Club Quattro in Shibuya. Tickets are 3,000 yen with one drink. For more information, contact Club Quattro at (03) 3477-8750. Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her will also be performing July 29 at Fuji Rock 2000. For more information, call the Fuji Rock Hotline at (0180) 993-998.

Providing fashion and furniture to the trendy twentysomethings who flock to Shibuya wasn't enough; the Beams boutique conglomerate has extended its reach to music. If its compilation "First Filtration of the Duplex Brains" is any indication, this attempt at total lifestyle-engineering should be phenomenally successful.

The liner notes say that the album was inspired by a hemp jacket in the Beams collection, which gives a hint of the music's overarching theme. Stoner music usually brings to mind dreadlocks and tie-dye. "Duplex Brains" harkens back to an earlier toking culture, that of '50s free poetry and beret-sporting bohemian intellectuals.

The album flip-flops between this cool jazz, beatnik vibe (no surprise, given that the main producer was Tsutomu Kurihara, drummer for trip-hop/pop group Little Creatures and Noise on Trash, Tokyo's answer to Tom Waits) and earthier cuts. Even the mellow, sample-enhanced pop of Costarica has a sort of poetic American folk anthology quality that brings to mind Kerouac and co.