I Will Be (LP)

The initial concept behind Dum Dum Girls' first full-length was to set the record in an Italian women's prison film from the 1960s. Though only single “Jail La La” (the would-be LP's title) deals with actually being imprisoned, it's an oddly appropriate fit for the Dum Dum Girls' aesthetic: leather, cherry red lipstick, a classic girl-group sound that nods to drag races as much as malt shops. Because of an image licensing snafu, the original concept was scrapped, and in its stead is I Will Be, a blistering half-hour of menacing, witty bubblegum pop. Review Dum Dum Girls began with Dee Dee (no last name provided) recording short, noisy tracks in her bedroom. These lo-fi recordings (as heard on a self-released CD-R, a single on Hozac, and a 12” on Captured Tracks) blended girl group melodies with Jesus and Mary Chain noise, Ramones-simple tunes with Dee Dee’s darkly sweet vocals, and came up with a sound deeply indebted to the past but also very much its own. For Dum Dum Girls' first album, I Will Be, Dee Dee recorded the tracks herself but then sent them to famed producer Richard Gottehrer (Blondie, the Go-Go's) to produce. Anyone expecting/fearing a glossy product to be the result will be glad to know that barely any noise or hiss has been sacrificed. The sound on I Will Be is just as gritty and cheap-sounding as Dee Dee’s bedroom recordings; the only differences are that the music is given a little more air to breathe with slightly more air between the instruments, and Dee Dee’s vocals are more up-front. The songs show no drop-off from her early recordings; the ten self-penned songs are just as catchy as anything she’s done. A couple could even be radio hits – if the world of radio were suddenly turned upside-down and super hooky noise pop songs about jail (“Jail La La”) and drugs (“Bhang Bhang, I’m a Burnout”) were getting steady airplay. Mixed in with the uptempo sunny rockers that make up the bulk of the record are a couple of nice ballads that demonstrate Dum Dum Girls' range a little. The best of them is the lovely cover of the Sonny & Cher gem “Baby Don’t Go,” but the song “Blank Girl,” which Dee Dee sings with her husband Brandon (of Crocodiles), isn’t far behind. The only possible flaw of the album is that the songs all sound the same. The drum machine, the guitars, the vocals, and even the song structures don’t vary much; Gottehrer’s pro­duction didn’t really address that issue. Luckily, the album rushes by so quickly and the basic sonic template is so good that it never really becomes an issue. For the next album, it will be nice to hear Dee Dee incorporate the bandmates she joined up with after the recording of I Will Be, but here the limited sonic palette works just fine. The record isn’t a complete knockout, but it’s a nice consolidation of the Dum Dum Girls sound to date and a fine starting point in what could be a nice string of noise pop records. Tim Sendra – AllMusic