For years, Jack Davey was known as one half of Los Angeles electro pop/neo soul duo J*Davey. They were featured last year as one of our Artists of the Week and while they’ve brought fans across the country to their feet while opening for known entities such as Prince, no one would have expected that the neo soul outfit would ever be influenced by the sounds of hard rock. But that’s what we’ve got here.

Now Jack is back, this time on her own with the release of her debut album, L0-F!. Although she’s released it in small pieces in EP form, this album is marked change for Davey. In are heavier, distorted guitars with a hard, grunge/punk rock edge that is a departure from her J*Davey material.

The album begins with the aforementioned fuzzy guitar sound on “Tinted Windows.” Davey lets the song come to her, as in, she doesn’t really go for it, but it works. That sets the tone for the album, which is strange considering it is heavier and guitar driven. Yet the mark of a good artist is knowing what his or her limitations are without going overboard, which will make it seem inauthentic. An example of this is on “Howl At The Moon,” where Davey brings a smooth sexiness, something that works well over the grungy, bluesy guitar. It’s a simple song, yet you feel compelled to look out your window and follow the singer’s order to howl.

L0-F! was produced by the singer’s boyfriend, Joey Strat, who is half of The Knux. His influence can be heard throughout the record. Now you wouldn’t mistake Davey or her sound as anything close to something from early ‘90s Seattle, with Mudhoney being the band of reference here, but there’s something charming about this record. Not in a technical way, because in that sense the album is a bit uneven, instead the thought and the exploration. Davey willing ventures out her comfort zone to make a pretty interesting album. There are hints of electronica in the songs, but her songwriting is crisp and lyrics fairly mature.

“Shit Gets Deep” and “Get Up!” are easily the two best songs on the album. Mixing distorted guitars with a punchy bass line and moody vocals, the former moves along sort of like a Rage Against The Machine song, without the rage and not as heavy. But think of the pacing of a song off their eponymous debut.

Contrarily, the latter song musically sounds like a mix between something from the 13^th Floor Elevators (believe it or not) and Bleach-era Nirvana. Both songs demonstrated what happens when this type of music is applied correctly and if Davey is to continue in a rockin’ direction, she should use these two tracks as templates. It also should be noted that both songs clock it under than three minutes, essential for any old school grunge/punk song.

Hearing Jack Davey do a full-fledged rock album was pretty surprising, but not as eyebrow raising as her choice on what genre to tackle. As a child of the ‘90s, it was interesting to hear her interpretation of what stood about the rock music of that time. Here’s hoping that this is merely a starting point where she can well immersed in garage-y grunge instead of a one-off album.