Le Tigre
This Island
Strummer/Le Tigre/Universal

Radio 4
Stealing of a Nation
Astralwerks

While indie-rap clothing and feminist sex-toy boutiques alike hawk anti-Bush T-shirts in their windows, protest-minded dance-punk bands-this administration's answer to 1980s hardcore-should be aiming lyrical flamethrowers at every target in their crosshairs. And given the wealth of election-year subject matter, from attacks on civil rights to the Iraq disaster, you'd expect said bands' anger to be more passionate and scalpel-sharp than ever. But that's not always the case with the latest releases by New York's Le Tigre and Radio 4-two of dance-punk's strongest torchbearers, now armed with major-label megaphones.

Le Tigre shout with the gumption of radical cheerleaders, and on their third full-length, leader Kathleen Hanna's voice shreds through a popping landscape of synths and Italo-disco beats. Call-to-arms tracks like "After Dark" and "TKO"-plus a cover of the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited," complete with a reggae bridge-will get the kids out on the dance floor. But the bleaty rhythms and abrasive guitars start to pile up willy-nilly, and some of the more techno sections sound like kids going bazonkers in a toy store. Lyrically, This Island favors meta-jams about being on tour, in the van, in the club; and when "Punker Plus" calls out a certain "right-wing king" for making "third world war" on behalf of "oil guys," it doesn't take a Mensa membership to figure out who's being indicted. Coming from a powerful, visionary band that's always named names-whether shouting out feminist icons or making sport of John Cassavetes' misogyny-it almost feels like they're tiptoeing.

Le Tigre's endless energy and choreographed spunk still makes This Island sizzle with hope and inspiration. Radio 4 could use an assist on that front. After spending two albums moving away from Gang of Four worship (it helped when they lost the army-surplus hats), the band hired Primal Scream producer Max Heyes to give their jabby, stabby punk minimalism an electronic polish. Unfortunately, Hayes packs every cranny of every track with washes of distortion and keyboards. Stealing also comes off as woefully cynical, the sound of hipsters despairing under totalitarian smack-down, with singer Anthony Roman intoning, "This is not how it's supposed to be." By the time they get to the boggy Bauhaus-in-dub number "Nation," which rhymes "politics like cancer" with "never find the answers," they've de-funned rebellion and turned it into a task. Somebody should confiscate their disco pass.

Grades: Le Tigre, B+
Radio 4, C+