Brody Dalle – Diploid Love [Alternative Rock]

Release date 28th April 2014

Brody Dalle, the Australian-born 34 year old mother of two and former front-woman for grunge-inspired punk rockers The Distillers is already well known for her raspy contralto singing, Nirvana inspired riffs, and marrying desert rock God, Josh Homme.

She’s back after a 5 year hiatus having quit meth, had a second child and dyed her hair blonde. Diploid Love, her first solo album, is produced by Alain Johnson (google him!) and features guest collaborations from Shirley Manson of Garbage, The Strokes' Nick Valensi, Michael Shuman of Queens of the Stone Age, and Emily Kokal of Warpaint.

Having not heard much from Brody Dalle since her Spinnerette project in 2009, I am very glad to say that Brody is back with an album that has all the trademark angst and visceral energy of The Distillers’ Coral Fang, but with some new twists on the traditional punk-rock formula. The collaborations are well matched, the song writing is excellent, and the performances (especially by Brody herself) are passionate as hell.

Hit play and at first glance the opening track Rat Race seems like any typical Distillers track, with garage rock riffs and Brody’s more elegant, quieter singing juxtaposed against her signature grungy growls. But there’s a twist when the chorus starts; bright uplifting brass harmonies and Strokes style guitar licks from Nick Valensi perfectly complement Brody’s raspy promises to take revenge on a city that’s scorned her:

“I’m gonna burn this city down, cos this city ran me around!”

Dalle has branched out on this album to tastefully incorporate some new musical elements into her songs; there’s strings, piano, elements of salsa, stadium rock and electronic music, 3/4 time signatures, drum machines, and there’s even a proper ballad on this album. Her song writing has also improved; the last track Parties for Prostitutes for example, is an almost soothing waltz with warbling strings and synths, and reverberating vocals, which builds feedback and noise to eventually explode into a wave of distorted guitars. Underworld ends with gorgeous flamenco guitars and brass. Dressed in Dreams incorporates elements of noise and stadium rock to create an instrumental that wouldn’t sound too out of place on an earlier Muse album, and I Don’t Need Your Love  is a chilling ballad which really showcases Brody’s singing ability over luxurious, spacy piano chords and pizzicato strings.

There are a few problems on here, there are a couple of moments where the guitars are over-compressed to the point where they sound redundant. I also hate the way that Parties for Prostitutes fades out; it’s one of the best tracks here, so why fade it out so quickly? It’s the last track on here too, so the album has this really anti-climactic finish which feels like one big shrug of the shoulders. It feels like this album is consistently brimming over with passion, only for it to run out of steam at the worst possible moment.

Despite a more mature and refined approach to her music, Brody Dalle still delivers a healthy dose of passionate punk rock attitude throughout Diploid Love and keeps her influences firmly on her sleeve on tracks like Meet the Foetus/Oh the Joy and Underworld. Make no mistake, Brody is back and she’s here to kick some ass. 

I really wanted to give this album an 8/10, but the ending with that half-arsed fadeout just ruined it for me. Still, I love this record and it’s a grower; the more I hear it, the more I like it.

[7/10]

Diploid Love comes out in the UK on April 29^th. At the moment you can hear a stream of the album here: http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/apr/21/brody-dalle-diploid-love-exclusive-album-stream

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