After 17 years of kicking out increasingly dancy garage-punk with the Gossip, Beth Ditto will make her solo debut with 'Fake Sugar!'

On 'Fake Sugar,' Ditto approaches love, loss, looking back and moving forward with all the sexiness, poignancy, power and beauty befitting such an iconoclastic artist.

The album is a mash-up of driving blues, malt-shop pop, swooning rock and countrified soul.

"In and Out" is a hip-shaker with a '50s girl group vibe, "Savoir Faire" pairs a disco stomp with Ditto's crackling rock vocal and "Go Baby Go" is a tribute to Suicide's Alan Vega, decked out in black leather, racing down an interstellar aural highway.

On "Oh My God," Ditto's rawness, quaver and cool split the difference between Tina Turner and Bobbie Gentry.