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GIRLS AGAINST BOYS ``House of GVSB'' (Touch & Go) With its fourth album in nearly as many years, Girls Against Boys proves itself worthy of the major-label bidding war that ensued over them with ``House of GVSB'' (Geffen won, although this album totes the band's favored indie-label logo.)

With a preference for creatining music that lies somewhere in the darkened hollows between punk and metal, noise and hardcore, pop and soul, the band's odd amalgamation of sound is as confounding as its name, yet Girls Against Boys' tuneful, patchwork creations work wonderfully well.

Hailing from New York City (by way of Washington, D.C.), Girls Against Boys lacks the blood-drawing harsh edges of its hometown brethern, taming it with the retro echo close on ``Life in Pink'' or slyly slithering around pop-music history on ``TheKindamzkYouLike.'' Digging a deep-ditch groove, Girls Against Boys manipulate its dual-bass attack into a furious whirl, gaining a momentum that reaches dangerous levels. The repetitive, new-wave-induced organ of ``Disco Six Six Six'' matched against the strong-willed walls of Scott McCloud's guitar nods to the band's metalistic fascination yet manages to keep the group's sound intact. ``Vera Cruz'' masters Devo's simplistic mantra but adds a keening vocal chorus and a dry metronomic beat that makes for devilish fun. Whatever you're looking for - pleasure, pain, escape or comfort - it's laying somewhere in the grooves of ``House of GVSB.''