Dum Dum Girls - 'Only in Dreams'

Did… did Dum Dum Girls just make a rockabilly record? Turns out if you scrub off all that lo-fi dirt and add a dash of confidence, DDG was a completely different band altogether. Of course, their taste in producers should have been a clue, as ’60s songwriter Richard Gottehrer and Raveonettes mastermind Sune Rose Wagner are certainly kindred spirits. The preview EP He Gets Me High was another hint. Still, hearing a record go this huge is surprising, and a welcome shift.

Only in Dreams keeps a few of the things that worked on the Girls’ full-length debut, I Will Be, like the haunting vox, searing guitar noise and straightforward music, and drops the rest. The lo-fi hiding is gone. Everything is out in the open and shimmering. This has some drawbacks, as mastermind Kristen “Dee Dee” Gundred’s songs do get repetitive. The worst offender here would be track three, “Just a Creep,” which has little going on beyond repeating the song title and a guitar lick over and over and over. In fact, I think the band only uses like three or four drum beats on the entire record.

But what Dum Dum Girls gain in this trade is far greater. Turns out Gundred has got an amazing set of pipes, and hearing her cut loose on cuts like “Always Looking” or “In My Head” is stunning. Who knew she could cut loose like Neko Case? Just as effective are her ballads; “Hold Your Hand” hits right in the heart. Either way, fans get gorgeous pop songs about missing somebody something fierce. Those poor folks missing the band’s noisier elements should be appeased by cuts like “Teardrops on My Pillow” and “Heartbeat,” though.

While the record is still a couple of cuts short of perfection, Only in Dreams is still a massive improvement over I Will Be, and hopefully a sign of even greater things to come. Between this and He Gets Me High, Dum Dum Girls have a stellar year, one full of reinvention and great tunes.

Les Demoniaques - 'Teenage Lust'

My first impression of Les Demoniaques’ cover of Jesus & Mary Chains’ “Teenage Lust” was, “Why?” A side project from shoegaze vocalist Tamaryn and Dum Gum Girls leader Dee Dee Penny, the cover is pretty much in line with what the two artists have achieved separately. Further pushing the question is the physical release. Rather than vinyl, the duo went with an etched postcard, a format that’s physical but much more susceptible to wear and tear.

So what I have is a picture of boobs that I paid $5.99 for. Granted, it’s a limited edition printing of boobs with only 1,000 copies in existence, no represses, but it’s still just boobs. Boobs, boobs, boobs.

Boobs.

Yet while I can argue for the inessential nature of this 45, I still have to admit that Les Demoniaques do a great job with “Teenage Lust.” It’s appropriately got that acoustic shoegaze quality folks expect from JAMC, but with cooing female vocals to lend it a whole new kind of haunting grace. The guitars and lyrics glide by, intertwined. It’s appropriately spooky for a quasi-goth band named after a ’70s horror movie. Granted, folks might be better off just finding the digital version, as it’s more environmentally friendly, but the point is that they’re listening. Dum Dum Girls’ next full-length, Only in Dreams, is due in September. While I expect great fuzz-pop things from that group, hopefully Les Demoniaques will evolve into a more substantial act in its own right, something a little more ethereal but just as enchanting.

Dum Dum Girls - 'He Gets Me High'

Less than a year after their solid debut I Will Be, Dum Dum Girls show marked improvement on their new EP He Gets Me High. At just four songs, the release plays to the Girls’ strengths – dissonant guitars, cooing vocals, and lovelorn lyrics – while avoiding the tedium of repetition that accompanied I Will Be.

The first two tracks, “Wrong Feels Right” and “He Gets Me High,” can and should be singles. They’re tightly wound love songs with a garage rock bent. The biggest changes in Dum Dum Girls’ sound come in clarity and confidence. The tracks are mixed better, burning off any lingering lo-fi inclinations. But while murky atmosphere was part of the Girls’ charm, He Gets Me High benefits from better recording quality. The drums sound thunderous, the guitars roar, the vocals soar, and the low end is mighty fine. On these first two tracks, at least, He Gets Me High is perfect.

I’m of two minds on track three, “Take Care of My Baby.” It’s a well-placed ballad that dials down the energy before rocketing it back up for track four, a cover of the Smiths’ “There is a Light That Never Goes Out.” But it’s such a hazy, indistinct trifle that takes four minutes to resolve itself. That Smiths cover recovers nicely, though. Structurally, it’s not too different from the original, just louder. But the group adds some nice twists, contrasting ’60s girl group harmonies with guitar squalls and adding a new, otherworldly guitar part.

Whether or not the group can sustain this kind of invention on their next full-length, due later this year, is still uncertain. But He Gets Me High circumvents any hipster backlash by bettering I Will Be in every way. Definitely recommended for fans of the Raveonettes.

Dum Dum Girls - 'I Will Be'

The Internet is destroying words. Sure, there are still some fine institutions where a guy can get well-reasoned arguments about records, but for the most part, it’s one just s/f fest where anonymous commenters hurl feces at each other. Depending on who you read, for example, Dum Dum Girls are either a major buzz band thanks to their use of retro, lo-fi, pseudo-gothic pop songs (like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart of 2010!), or a really, really shitty band who writes stupid, useless songs for stupid, useless hipsters (like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart of 2010…?). Me, I fall somewhere in between.

I generally like I Will Be, the group’s full-length debut on Sub Pop Records. I finally picked the album up over the weekend. It dropped almost a month ago, which in Internet time makes it an artifact from another era. I was hesitant on account of all the over- and underrating going on, and to be honest my record collection is still too big despite several attempts to sell it off. But I’m glad I committed.

I Will Be is a solid collection of retro-leaning pop tunes. They’re noisy enough to defy mainstream conventions, not nearly noisy enough to deserve the phrase “noise pop” though. The songs are a little more tightly wound than the Pains or The Raveonettes, but fans of either group should be down with Dum Dum Girls. These are lo-fi love songs. They’re hazy and romantic and ever so slightly macabre, even kitschy in the case of “Jail La La.”

That said, I had to check my CD player twice to make sure it wasn’t set to shuffle. The songs get a little repetitive, which is bad for a 29 minute album. So while the songs are cohesive, they’re also too restricted by the group’s artistic limitations. The Girls recycle the same drum machine parts a few times, which doesn’t help.

Dum Dum Girls produced a record that’s decent throughout. Maybe I Will Be will round out the bottom 20 of my top albums for the year. Maybe I’ll sell my copy three to five years from now. Maybe their next album will tell me everything I ever wanted to know and feel and make me cry for days but in the sort of way that gives me comfort, because it will remind me that life is worth experiencing. Shit man, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to make any over-the-top statements.