Elizabeth Elmore is a perpetual homina-homina-homina crush of the Makeoutclub.com set, but for all the right reasons. Two years ago, the diminutive, outspoken ex-Sarge frontlady took leave from law school at Northwestern (guess where she stands on illegal downloading?) for a decidedly less lucrative career path, wringing brainy eviscerations out of her new indie-rawk quartet, the Reputation. The first half of their sophomore release, To Force a Fate (Lookout!), flaunts Elmore’s muscular—if occasionally formulaic—power-pop chops: Distorted, palm-muted verses spring into shout-it-out-loud power-chord parties, and the crowd goes wild. But like her predecessors in Throwing Muses and Belly, Elmore’s sugar-rush vocals merely sweeten dour, pointed, often fictionalized relation-shit requiems. “I’m not the only one who’s running from the truth,” she growls in “Bottle Rocket Battles,” before candying it up big time on the chorus (“It was once before you noticed and twice before I cared/Three times and we’ve both had it for the year”). The riff-happy “Let This Rest” and “Face It” are the more infectious of the Reputation’s not-quite-ready-for-prime-time players; their power is derived from the unlikeliest of rhythm sections, Deftones doppelgänger drummer Steve Van Horn and lanky bassist Joel Root, who always looks juuuust north of projectile vomiting onstage. The happily unhip collective—completed by hulking guitarist Sean Hulet—executes a few surprisingly chameleonic flourishes, applying orchestral grandeur to Elmore’s riot gear in “The Ugliness Kicking Around,” an epic healing ballad rife with morose piano sweeps. Big shock that after all this kicking, screaming, and mutating, Fate ends with a complementary lullaby called “Bone Tired.” ANDREW BONAZELLI