Spinnerette
Ghetto Love
Anthem Records
by Hugh Platt
It’s been six long years since Brody Dalle (or Brody Dalle Homme as she’s now known) laid claim to the title of First Lady of Punk Rock. Since her last record of substance, The Distillers 2003 album Coral Fang, Dalle has become Mrs Josh Homme, sired the Ginger lord of rock a daughter, and now returned with a new outfit, Spinnerette. Dalle might have moved on from her past band, but is the rest of the world ready to?
After the first listen to Ghetto Love you definitely should be. This isn’t The Distillers mk II, with the fuzzy rawness of the past surplanted by a cleaner, low-slung groove. While there may be an undeniable trace of her husband’s outfit, Queens of the Stone Age, to the thick strapping bassline and feral guitar licks of the EP’s title track, Dalle’s vocals, slipping between bruised rasp and syrupy-croon, give the track a less tripped out mood than Josh Homme’s good ol’ boys. It’s slicker’n’sexier than a cruise ship full of supermodels sinking into an oil spill.
That’s not to say Dalle has turned her back on punk rock. Throughout the EP, her 3-chord roots still sparkle through the studio polish like flecks of sparkly grit. ‘Valium Knights’ has a rockabilly rattle to it that’ll give compulsive toe-tappers repetitive strain injuries. Dalle has never sounded smokier.
‘Distorting A Code’ at first sounds like Garbage when they lost the plot, with Dalle’s lighter vocals failing to grab you by the shirtfront like some of her lower, punch-drunk drawls can. It’s back to familiar territory for the final track, ‘Bury My Heart’, though. Take out the glitch-punk programmed drums, and this could slot in amongst the street-smarts of Coral Fang’s tracklisting with little trouble.
Watch the video to ‘Ghetto Love’ by Spinnerette
If there’s one issue with the Ghetto Love EP, it’s that even after listening to it a many times, you’ll still be hard-pressed to nail down the band’s identity. The alliance between her punk rock credentials and her more experimental sensibilities feels as though it could tip irrevocably – and potentially disasterously – too far in either direction at any moment. Hopefully that’s one question we’ll get a solid answer to when the band’s debut full-length drops later in the year.
4/6
Spinnerette – Ghetto Love tracklisting
Ghetto Love
Valium Knights
Distorting A Code
Bury My Heart
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Spinnerette’s full-legth debut album is scheduled for release later in 2009. Check back on Thrash Hits next week for an interview with Brody Dalle.