Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be (Sub Pop) 29/03/10

With every passing day and month it seems that America is producing more and more top quality garage rock bands dealing in lo-fi punk and 60’s girl group melodies. If at this point we found out that there was a factory in Brooklyn manufacturing the next Vivian Girls and boxing up a fresh delivery of No Age jrs it would hardly be a surprise. Why then should anyone care for yet another addition to the roster?

Dum Dum Girls are both entirely what you would suspect them to be and at the same time something all together more special and unique. Their back story is peppered with the usual names, as is their debut album ‘I Will Be’. Brooklyn lo-fi duo Crocodiles provide guest vocals and Nick Zinner straps his guitar back on to contribute to ‘Yours Alone’ whilst DDG drummer Frankie Rose has her own band (The Outs) as well as having played with Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts. However, despite fitting the blue print almost exactly ‘I Will Be’ somehow manages to avoid being the faded result of over copying an original.

Much of this lies with lead singer and band ring leader Dee Dee. When she’s not flirting with girls (‘Lines Her Eyes’) she’s longing for her husband (‘Rest Of Our Lives’) or just getting stoned (‘Bhang Bhang, I’m A Burnout’) all whilst giving a vocal performance of a lifetime. Confident and strong she inspires and draws the listener in. Her ice cool melodies invoke the sprit of Spector produced Ronnettes singles but all convention can be flipped in an instant as on ‘Oh Mein Me’ when all the lyrics are sung in German.

Album highlight comes from the charmingly chipper prison blues track ‘Jail La La’. Depicting a true low point it remains upbeat in melody if not subject matter. Imagine Johnny Cash on lock down with The Vaselines and you’re about there.

In a genre where hazy and distorted guitars cover up hidden and often weak vocals, it is refreshing to hear an album as clean and pretty as ‘I Will Be’ that still remains raggedy and rough to the core. A band unafraid to nakedly display their souls yet remain resilient and strong Dum Dum Girls might just have crafted one of the best debut records of 2010.