On a Saturday night at the Mermaid Lounge last month, Burnversion are conducting a musical exorcism. James Marler's tortured whine is almost like Kurt at his most despairing and Bob Warner's guitar—alternately lugubrious and screeching—is almost like nothing you've ever heard.

Likewise, Mark Brill's thunderous drum rolls crop up from a trance state. Brooding, dark, sinister, cathartic.

“We're just going for the death rock chicks,” Marler laughs. “We're less brooding now. And more reli...