The first time I heard Juliette Lewis singing, was in a movie called Strange Days. Performing PJ Harvey's "Hardly Wait" and "Rid of Me"  gave a hint of what was to come. Normally when moviestars turn into singers, they tend to raise a few eyebrows and be largely ignored afterwards. Juliette and the Licks however took it quite serious and went on tour in late 2006 in America and many parts of Europe opening for Muse and Chris Cornell. They made a couple of albums before braking up in 2009. Back with a new group called The New Romantiques; their album Terra Incognita has been produced by no other than Omar Rodriguez-Lopez from The Mars Volta.

The result is a vicious sounding rock n roll record. You won’t find the name of the new group on the cover, but it is definitely a new step in her musical career. Her previous material wasn’t bad. I particularly liked that Hot Kiss track of hers. Sounded like a track of a wild erotic movie. I don’t know much about her, but I assume she is a passionate woman. The music is a wild kaleidoscope mixture of blues, pop, rock and punk with Juliette’s wild screaming voice as a central point. She has a energetic voice, something you don’t immediately expect. I still remember seeing her as Nick Nolte’s innocent and insecure teenage daughter in Cape Fear. As an actress she has proven her versatility, playing a range of different characters. It seems that it all her accumulated fury is expressed on the songs. She did wrote most of the songs anyway.

I don’t know exactly the role of the other bandmembers in creating this energetic record, producer Omar Rodriguez did create an excellent heavy sounding record with pounding drums and sharp sounding guitars with very few moments of rest. Juliette is proving a point. She is totally committed and she won’t be ignored.