I approached Marnie Stern's In Advance of the Broken Arm cautiously. It's not the talk of her Steve Vai-meets-Don Caballero shredding that demands such trepidation, but rather the other side of her influences: Sleater Kinney, Deerhoof, and Hella are bands I can listen to in small doses, if at all. "Vibrational Match," the first track on her debut CD, didn't help this wary approach. Stern couples her frenzied fretboard calisthenics with similar high-octave vocal line, swarming like a Van Halen-informed riot grrl. Interesting, but a whole album of it? Pass me the Tylenol.

Just when I thought I'd put Stern on the needlessly over-hyped list, "Every Single Line Means Something" came on. Perhaps its status as the record's lead single should have informed me of its crossover potential, but "Every Single Line" addresses all of my qualms over "Vibrational Match." Stern's voice is less shrill, relaxing into a multi-tracked coo during the breakdown, and doesn't have to fight for high-octave space with the guitars, which follow less frantic lower-octave figures. The chorus trades the cheerleader chant of "Vibrational" for genuine hooks. The complexity of the instrumentation doesn't overwhelm, but instead allows you to pick up on the tricky stuff going on underneath the more rhythmic guitar line. Zach Hill's drumming doesn't fight the momentum of the song, either. "Every Single Line" pulls a great song out of an intriguing, sometimes infuriating aesthetic.

Elsewhere, the titular shenanigans of "Put All Your Eggs in One Basket and Then Watch That Basket!" proves that the Don Caballero influence isn't limited to finger-tapped leads, but the song certainly has those in spades, as well. What that song and a scant few others ("Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling") benefit from is a tempting calm, however fleeting, amid Stern's signature flurry of activity.

My initial hesitation about Marnie Stern was largely accurate, since In Advance of the Broken Arm spazzes out a bit too much for my liking, but finding a solid EP's worth of material that either pulls off the hyperactive shredding with style or calms down enough to provide space and tension is a pleasant surprise. I doubt she'll calm down too much, since she has to justify playing this guitar, but I'm optimistic about her live performances and her next album.