If Tabasco sauce ever needed a jingle, it should call on this quartet. Their self-titled debut is concocted of timeless ingredients: loud guitars, dexterous solos, and thrilling howls. And it's saucy. It might not put you in a coma, but prolonged exposure may cause sweating and a rash. The Datsuns are a classic, no-frills rock band that plays nothing but rock. They have more in common with the Hellacopters and Nashville Pussy than with the stuff that's been labeled "rock" by the big glossy magazines (think Vines, Hives, Strokes). There are no garage, art-punk, or experimental elements on their self-titled disc. It's just a sweet-ass, guitar-driven humdinger. The sound feels reckless, but the arrangement of every wank and thump is shit-sharp.

The swinging fists and grinding hips of the first track, "Sittin' Pretty," are rhythmic beauties. Suave vocals and a weighty groove light it up. "Motherfucker from Hell" is the band's trademark song, but they should have picked one with a less-familiar sounding guitar lead. The horny, young-man zeal of "Lady" recalls KISS, while Led Zeppelin and the MC5 impregnate almost every other track.

Singer/bassist Dolf De Datsun (the entire band adopted "Datsun" as their surname a la the Ramones) sings and screams about hot girls who ignore him, hot girls who turn him on, hot girls who fucked him over, and hot girls who are hot. His voice wavers here and there like Jack White teetering on the edge of sanity. But when Dolf screams, it could put a fissure in his throat.

At times, the musicianship on this disc is more impressive than the songs themselves, but no matter. Slather this hot sauce on nice and thick.

The album is adventurous in that it tries to get the listener to follow it over a heady personal landscape. Like a modern mystic, Leo sings about encounters, places visited, and a growing awareness of his reality. He's an insightful lyricist, and he's not afraid to sing in French or use big words like "ossify," "fungible" and "apostasy" in his songs. With a tinge of Anglo-punk in his throat, Leo's lithely passionate voice soars up there like Jeff Buckley and Superchunk's Mac McCaughan.

"The Ballad of the Sin Eater" harks back to Leo's punk days with bating, yammering vocals but sounds like a travel diary. Leo name-checks Belfast, Russia, Damascus, Kigali and Jersey. "2nd Ave, 11 AM" and "Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead" are instantly catchy guitar-driven tracks with romantic undertones. "I'm calling on the Majors to end this general despair. In the graveyard at Inchigeela, in black clothing, I'll be there. My love wears black clothes and red flowers in her hair," he sings on the latter. Like an optimistic Nick Cave and Shakespeare, ay? The killer track "Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone," opens with a sunny little riff, meanwhile Leo blurts "It's times like these when a neck looks for a knife." If only that two-tone ska beat would come save us so we could dance and be free! Instead, Leo says, we've got "gangsters and clowns with a stereotyped sound." But when that man hits his "ooh-hoo-ooooh" notes, damn it's purdy.

While Ted Leo may be lamenting over inner conflicts et cetera, Hearts of Oak gives the rest of us a sparkling listen. It's equal parts melody and cacophony, lovely and feverish.