By: Tim Kenneally

Distillers frontwoman Brody Armstrong has a punk-rock-luminary husband, a history of drug abuse, and a honey-on-gravel rasp that's eerily reminiscent of a certain grunge diva. Still, any comparisons to Ms. Love are curtly dismissed. "Courtney who?" the Australia-bred Los Angeles resident scoffs. "A lot of artists have inspired me: Wendy O. Williams, Poly Styrene, definitely Debbie Harry, and Siouxsie Sioux."

Hawking up a sonic gob at mall moshers on their second album, Sing Sing Death House, the band conjures the spirit of '77 with razor-blade riffery while Armstrong shouts about urban blight, school shootings, and her troubled youth (mom tossed out her violent dad; Armstrong left home in her teens). Female empowerment is a recurring theme, though Armstrong denies playing the grrrl card. "I am a feminist," she says, "but it's my brand of feminism."

So far, that's meant tactfully ignoring charges of nepotism (the band is on Epitaph imprint HellCat, run by Armstrong's spouse and Rancid main mohawk Tim Armstrong) and brawling with bouncers ("They put me in a full nelson; it was great"). Even with success brewing--the L.A. anti-anthem "City of Angels" is enjoying heavy rotation at local modern-rock giant KROQ--Armstrong foresees no lack of gripe fodder: "I'm only twenty-three; I've got a lot more rage in me."