Model/Actriz, 'Dogsbody'

(True Panther Sounds, digital, vinyl)

“There’s a pleasure … to make gay sex transgressive again,” writer-director Mike White told Variety in 2022. He referred to some eyebrow-raising moments from his HBO series “The White Lotus,” both seasons of which contain unexpectedly graphic and unsettling sex scenes between men. He continued, “It’s dirty … men are having sex and you have this Psycho music underneath. It just amuses me.”

Brooklyn rock quartet Model/Actriz do something similar on their debut album, Dogsbody. Front person Cole Haden’s queer-as-hell, carnally charged vocals and lyrics drip like hot wax on a writhing, naked body. He and his bandmates create an implacable vortex of stuttering guitars, scuttling drums, and indecipherable, metallic sounds full of discord and dissonance. On the one hand, the effect is profoundly discomforting. On the other, it’s wildly exciting and sexy.

Haden’s vocal style lands somewhere between singing and speaking. It’s melodic and mellifluous, a mismatch with the band’s sharp-edged noise rock. Maybe he’s singing along to music we can’t hear, a disorienting effect that implies disconnection. He’s so close to the mic that you can hear his saliva crackle on the lining of his cheeks as they separate from his gums when he forms words. His tongue might as well be in your ear.

Magnified by confrontational composition, Haden’s vivid lyrics are a barrage of libidinous confessions. On the propulsive “Mosquito,” he murmurs through horny, fragmented thoughts. He’s in a frenzy, with “everything gushing, ripe and crimson … everything searing through my veins now.” It culminates with a brash, shouted climax: “With a body count / higher than a mosquito,” he yells, exposing an indiscriminate desire to feed on (and penetrate) as many people as possible.

Another window-fogging cut, “Crossing Guard,” finds Haden “pressed against the glass.” As a band, the foursome creates a hurtling mass of shredded sounds propelled by fizzing drums, screeching harmonics and a Morse code bass line.

The song reaches a pinnacle as Haden chokes out “You don’t … have to … submit yourself to it,” repeating “you don’t” and “submit” four times each. He ratchets up tension on each challenge to the titular character, which Haden has said to be Charon, the mythological ferryman of the River Styx. Haden resists something dark, final and inevitable.

The absolute muchness of Dogsbody is occasionally balanced by subtle cuts like “Divers.” Ember-like wisps and soft clicks envelope a whispering Haden, who ponders satisfaction found within another “but not within myself.” And closer “Sun In” cools down the hot-tempered record with slow-burning, softly strummed guitars.

Largely an exploration of explosive sexuality, Dogsbody is a snarling beast of queer fury brought to life by a lascivious front person. I bet Mike White would like it.

Dogsbody is available at modelactriz.bandcamp.com and all major streaming platforms. Model/Actriz perform on Thursday, April 13, at the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge in South Burlington.