CD of The Week

We first metBrody Dalle in the early ‘00s, fronting the raw Punk band The Distillers. After three full length albums, critical acclaim and mounting tensions, the band split up. Dalle resurfaced a few years later with Spinnerette, releasing one self-titled record that I was a huge fan of, though the project (which was essentially just her and producer/multi-instrumentalist Alain Johannes) never truly took off. Dalle has spent the last couple years laying low, raising her two children with husband (Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age fame) while recording new music.

The result is Diploid Love¸ her first true solo album, out this week digitally (with a physical release on the way May 19th). The record shows a continued evolution in Dalle’s musical palate, moving further beyond the straight-up Punk rock of her early days. Album opener “Rat Race” (sadly not a Specials cover) threatens to “burn this city down to the ground,” with a massive blast of horns courtesy of Mariachi El Bronx. The horns are a great touch on the next song, “Underworld.” Dalle’s current single, the charging, snarling “Don’t Mess With Me,” is a true highlight of the album.

The first taste of Diploid Love was the two-parter “Meet The Foetus / Oh The Joy,” in which Dalle channels both her fears and excitement about motherhood into an epic rager, with backing vocals from her pal Shirley Manson, as well as Emily Kokalof Warpaint. “I Don’t Need Your Love” is the most out-of-the-box track on here: a slow-burner with Brody showing she can gently croon as well as she wails. The six-minute song, which Dalle says is aimed at her biological father, features swelling strings and an interlude sampling her children playing together.

Diploid Love is another intriguing sonic step in Dalle’s career, a logical evolution from the Spinnerette album. Putting her Punk influences in a blender with the desert rock vibes of her husband’s band, Brody Dalle’s return to music making is a much needed shot in the arm in 2014. You can catch her opening for QOTSA at the Mann Center’s Skyline Stageon July 20th, in what I believe is her first Philly-area appearance since the Distillers played Lollapalooza 2003!