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DIAMANDA GALÁS Longtime downtown Manhattan musician and activist Diamanda Galás is truly scary. Forget her tinted, sometimes blood-spattered press photos that make her seem like a vampire or demon from hell. It’s her music, best heard in solo live settings, that will put the fear of some unknown god in you. On Guilty Guilty Guilty (its tracks taken from 2005-06 concert recordings), Galás starts out with soul legend O.V. Wright’s “8 Men And 4 Women,” and for the next seven-plus minutes, she wrings every last ounce of guilt out of the original. Growling, shrieking and otherwise sending her voice on a multi-octave excursion that would convince the most earthbound that she possesses extraordinary powers, Galás pulverizes, caresses and generally draws attention to the underbelly of everything she touches. Her take on Johnny Mercer’s pop-jazz standard “Autumn Leaves” forgoes the well-loved chords and replaces them with odd, twitchy playing, all but burying the original. The album’s biggest treat is her version of Baptist hymn “O Death.” North Carolina balladeer Lloyd Chandler and West Virginia traditional musician Dwight Diller have both invoked seemingly unchallengeable intensity with their versions of this tune. But Galás pounces on it, grunting the words with incantations of evil gibberish and long, circular howls that would wrinkle cast iron. It’s good to know that music can still be this dangerous. [Mute, www.mute.com] —Bruce Miller
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