Dum Dum Girls

I Will Be

(Sub Pop)

Record Review by Patricio Maya

I Will Be, the first full-length album by Dum Dum Girls, has a catchy, blurred sound. The instruments sound like a fast train making its way through a forest, while the vocals sound echoey and hallow. Beware, most of the 11 songs in this 28-minute Sub Pop album sound like each other. So if you don't like, say, "Jail La La,"  the catchiest song of all, you probably won't like the entire album, which is full of boiled down fuzz with pop sensibilities (classic noise pop). 

Most songs create a blurry wave, find a catchy chorus, go with it for two or three minutes and then just merge into the next one. I don't really mind this approach because the Dum Dum Girls' melodies just kinda linger in your ears, buzzing. And I would argue that the album's minimalism favors both sporadic guitar rifts and Dee Dee's understated vocal delivery. Both stand out above the noise. 

Surprisingly, a dark yet youthful mood emerges from all of this. 

The lyrics have a lot to do with it. Here are some random phrases taken from the album: "I will be your girl la la, your eyes consume me la la, the rest of out lives la la, yours alone la la, it's so sweet to see you naked la la, everybody's out to get my baby la la, pretty baby please don't go la la. " Not Bob Dylan lyrics, if you know what I mean.  

Yet at the same time, almost all of the songs benefit from the lyrical simplicity. This is because I Will Be is full of little adolescent tales of love and loss. And though the puppy love lyrics are clearly in earnest, Dee Dee's at times detached delivery gives them a layer or irony (or, if not irony, at least a kind of self-consciousness that equals nostalgia or something).

All of this is to say that I Will Be is deceivingly simple. But as punk has shown time and again, you don't need a 15 minute ballad full of literary allusions to achieve musical complexity. Dum Dum Girls --whose name comes from the Iggy Pop song "Dum Dum Boys" and The Vaselines' album Dum-Dum-- get pretty complex with little more than buzzy two-minute love songs. 

Dum Dum Girls are Dee Dee (lead vocals and guitar), Jules (guitar and vocals), Bambi (bass) and Sandra Vu (drums and vocals). Guitarist Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Brandon Welchez from Crocodiles cameo on "Yours Alone" and "Blank Girl," respectively. The album was produced by Richard Gottehrer, who has worked with Blondie and The Raveonettes. Go get it.