The acoustic versions of these songs, which Los Angeles band Nico Vega performs here, are no less striking, no less feverish than they are when they're amped up. They are ALL fever. They still feel like the end of a wrist that's had the hand chewed off, or the end of an ankle that's had the foot lopped off. They still make you feel like someone just released you from the broadside of an electric fence. They make you feel as if you've been strewn, or caught showering. They have that intimate feel to them, of raw emotions, of blinding lights come out at you from the pitched blackness.
Lead singer Aja Volkman gives the kinds of performances that you'd expect out of someone stabbing around in that dark, getting fired up and letting it all loose, scared of what's on the other side of the darkness, what might appear there, in form, when the lights pop on. It's also quite a bit about what likely won't be there - what might terrifyingly not be there. She sings about getting kissed like it's meant. She sings about the behaviors of animals. She makes you feel as if you can see or sense the blood whipping through her arms and face, as if she were over come by that power. She sings, "Feel my pulse/Oh, my heartbeat," and it's her anthem. It's that acknowledgement of body and flesh and all of those parts that we can't seem to live without, all coming into a clearer picture.