WUSSY - It has mastered the art of chaos.

If glowing reviews were the coin of the realm, the members of Wussy would be wealthy enough to hire Sting to trim the hedge animals around their mansions. As it is, the rootsy folk-squall quartet has put out two ecstatically received indie releases - its 2005 debut, Funeral Dress, and the recent Left For Dead, both on Cincinnati's Shake It Records - and has heeded the admonition to keep the day jobs. The band's necessary workday schedule has kept it from venturing into the wider touring world to capitalize on all that goodwill printing, but it's likely to receive an equally positive reception from audiences when it finally hits the road.

Until then, Wussy will have to be content with feedback around its Cincinnati base and responses like Robert Christgau's recent four-star rave of Left For Dead in Rolling Stone; he was even more vocal in his praise of Funeral Dress. Although the results of and the responses to Funeral Dress were on the band's mind when it began work on Left For Dead, it tried not to get bogged down in change for the sake of change.

"There was never any discussion about whether we were going to make a different record," says singer-guitarist Chuck Cleaver. "We made Funeral Dress over a longer period of time and in a couple of different places, so it doesn't sound as cohesive or as much like a "room' record, and that was on purpose."

"It was more organic. We never really set out to be a different band, we just didn't want to have the same songs on there," says singer-guitarist Lisa Walker, Wussy's other chief songwriter. "With the first one, we purposefully and by necessity went a little lo-fi, but the production was great. There's a certain sonic difference but we had to up the production values because of the increased noise factor on this one."

Left For Dead may actually be the sound of Wussy gelling as a band. Wussy began in 2001 as a duo with Cleaver and Walker (who ultimately became a couple) and grew to include gifted multi-instrumentalist Mark Messerly and novice drummer Dawn Burman. Walker and Burman were relative newbies to the band scene, while Cleaver and Messerly were old hands (Cleaver with the Ass Ponys, Cincinnati's big near-hit, and Messerly with his sterling pop duo Messerly and Ewing, both of which are theoretically still together but on indefinite hiatus), so Wussy spent the first few years honing its technical skills to accompany its natural chemistry.

On Funeral Dress, Wussy assembled its songs piece by piece, layer by layer, until it achieved the desired sound. On Left For Dead, which was produced by former Afghan Whigs bassist John Curley, the quartet had a couple of years of live gigs under its belt and decided to play as a studio unit and try to keep the sound rawer and noisier.

"The songs were introduced to the band and retooled a good while before we made the record," says Walker. "They became assimilated into the set and we played them live often. On the first one, we were still in some ways struggling to wield our instruments properly, so to speak. Before, we were still trying to figure out what space we should each occupy and now we have a better feel for that."

"We're all pretty much just better at what we do," says Cleaver. "On our first record, there was one solo and the only way we could play it was I had to play half and Mark played half. This album, there are some actual solos. We're just a better band."

When Wussy takes the stage, any mannered studio subtleties are jettisoned in favor of a grittier, louder, more confrontational sonic experience. Early performances teetered on the edge of control (and sometimes spiraled beyond it), but the band has largely mastered the art of chaos, living up to whisper-to-roar comparisons like the Velvet Underground, Yo La Tengo, Jesus and Mary Chain, and Crazy Horse.

"There's such an ineptitude that you become sort of fearless," says Cleaver. "Mistake after mistake just pile up on each other. If they turn out, they can be fairly glorious; if they don't they can be mind- boggling. But eventually, I think it would be interesting to release a live record because we're so different than we are on record. Live, we're known as a loud band and I'm glad because I really like that. We don't have to be ear-piercingly loud, but in order to do some of the stuff our guitars do, we have to be loud."

"Yeah," concurs Walker with a laugh. "They don't feed back too much if they're quiet."

Wussy, The Highballers, Lawton Brothers

9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 16

Beachland Tavern

15711 Waterloo Rd.

216.383.1124

Tickets: $7