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Brody Dalle

Diploid Love

Written by: PP on 04/10/2014 18:14:42

If you've dreamed of hearing Brody Dalle scream her throat broken like in the good ol' The Distillers days, then her solo album "Diploid Love" is probably as close as you're going to get. Her weirdo experimental side project Spinnerette was a flop, consisting of weird QOTSA-inspired rock'n'roll fused with funk and electronic elements, and in no way satisfied our desire to hear classic "Coral Fang" / "Sing Sing Death House" era material sung live once again. With "Diploid Love", Dalle takes a step back towards faster, more energetic music and often sings from the top of her lungs as we can hear on "Rat Race" as a good example. With Nick Valensi (The Strokes) on guitar, that was pretty much a given, though.

The songs are still notably Queens Of The Stone Age inspired, but this time the riffs are solid, guitar distortion is back in its appropriate place, and the melodies are generally good all-around. There's still experimental stuff like horn instrumentation and Latin guitar on "Underworld", for example, but generally the album is far more straight-forward in its nature than anything Spinnerette released - at least during its first half. More importantly, the chorus melodies are winners for the most part, largely thanks for the less experimental approach chosen for this album. It's still no Distillers, but we'll take what we can get, eh?

The record isn't without its faults, however. The piano-led "Carry On" sounds like something that could've been on a Coldplay album, which is okay, except Dalle has never been particularly good at the soft, calm singing that she attempts in this song. The same applies for the god-awful "I Don't Need Your Love", which is an attempt at soul music that feels totally out-of-place on an album that has an awesome song like "Don't Mess With Me" on it. She's always at her best when she lets her powerful voice loose without restraint, so it's a shame she doesn't utilize it to her full advantage. The second half of the album is namely packed with similar strange experimentation as on Spinnerette, and to be perfectly honest, it's just not very good. A song like "Blood In Gutters" may work because of its very, very loud chorus, but the rest of the song just isn't very interesting.

So to sum it up, even more simplicity is needed before Brody Dalle's musical endeavours are considered relevant once again. An album that starts out great stumbles on exactly the same elements that made Spinnerette mediocre.

Download: Rat Race, Don't Mess With Me
For the fans of: Spinnerette, Queens Of The Stone Age, Courtney Love, Garbage
Listen: Facebook

Release date 28.04.2014
Self-Released