You spin me right round!
Now, I only ever had a fleeting attraction to The Distillers, mainly due to the song, ‘City Of Angels’ that was a real sing-along Punk song, however I always found that Brodie Dalle’s voice was somewhere between annoying, irritating and brilliant. In fact, Brett Gurewitz from Bad Religion once described it as a, “gravel truck without an axel’. I failed to get into many of the band’s other songs, and so it was of no real shame to me that she went quiet on the music scene to remarry, swapping Rancid’s lead singer Tim Armstrong, for Queen Of Stone Age’s lead singer Josh Homme, and then having a baby (Camille Harley Joan Homme).
Now, Spinnerette as a band are not The Distillers. They are a mix of Joan Jet brought up to date and given a big injection of Punk rock. First song here, ‘Ghetto Love’ has bass and fuzzy guitars that sound slightly retro. Brodie’s voice, whilst being gravely has an added echo to it, and sounds a hundred times better than when she previously tried to sing with a Johnny Lydon sneer. ‘All Babes Are Wolves’ has a rumbling verse that builds up nicely to the Joan Jett-esque scream of the chorus, once again given that female, ballsy-rock without it sounding cheesy at all. In fact whilst bands like The Donnas have tried to bring the essence of rock back with females, they have only given mediocre albums. This firmly thrusts women up there in rock again, and not since Courtney Love has someone come out with something a little bit different from a member of the fairer sex (and arguably you could suggest that her musical influence was to be seen no further than her husband).
‘Cupid’ again uses the low vocals in the verse with chugging guitars, before the big riffs are unleashed in the chorus, along with the screaming vocals. ‘Geeking’ is about as close to Joan Jett & The Blackhearts as you can get. The lyrics ponder, “You and me got a reason to live // Now I’m drunk, I don’t know what it is // Is it etiquette? // No one gives a shit, but me // I’m on my own, nowhere…” A thoughtful mid-tempo song. This then pulls things down to a well-crafted tune of, ‘Baptized By Fire’ which leaves you hanging in the ethos, before spitting you out into a catchy chorus of keyboards.
With ‘A Spectral Suspension’, the album takes you out of your comfort zone and gives you a song that the first verse is a gentle and beautiful, sounding slightly trippy in a charming teen-movie kind of way, before the chorus blasts out with spray paint, tattoos and attitude. Great stuff! It’s the way that you only get a couple of songs that sound similar, as Brodie can clearly change the albums direction with each song, seemingly unshackled from the expectations that she had with The Distillers. At times there is a hint of New Wave, and for some reason I get the feeling that if Pink and Lady Gaga made an album together that had big riffs and drums beats, it may well sound something like this. ‘Distorting A Code’ again floats out there like a chilled rock song, and at one point the vocals appear to be played backwards, and whilst with other bands this might seem strange, here it seems completely natural.
My favourite song on the album is, ‘Sex Bomb’. It starts with a hard drum beat and a fuzzy guitar riff, and the more times you hear the song it instantly gets into your head as you find yourself repeating the lyrics out loud of, “Oh, won’t you be my daddy // Love you oh, // no other daddy can tell me what to do // Oh, won’t you be my daddy // Please me daddy // Be my daddy please!” Be warned that this can lead to embarrassing moments. Next song, ‘Driving Song’ has a gorgeous drum beat to start with before the song bounces gentle along. Then we have a slice of Trashy Punk Rock in, ‘Rebellious Palpitations’ that is as addictive as the white lines mentioned in the song.
Just to prove that at each corner we can expect something different we then have a song that weighs in just under 6 minutes that is a little bit Prog/Stoner Rock with long verses and fuzzy chugging guitars. Then suddenly we have the song, ‘Impaler’ that is a little bit Kate Bush mixed with Tori Amos and with Eastern undertones. It’s another album curveball that leaves me a little undecided, but not quite as much as the Led Zepplin-easque song of, ‘A Prescription For Mankind’, which I have to say is a little long winded, and whilst again shows a more creative and experimental side, the album may well have been stronger with it’s exclusion.
All in all we have a great debut album from what could well be classed as Brodie and friends amid rumours that the band that recorded this album may not be the band that will tour, and Brodie herself insists that, “Spinnerette isn’t a band, it’s me and whichever musicians I want to work with at the time”, which seems an odd, but not totally unheard of way of going about things.
On first listen you will be surprised at the songs, both good and bad, and with each listen you realise that actually this is a very good album that is totally diverse and free from most labelling. I won’t even mention the obvious marketing gimmick of underwear shots on the front and back cover, as the music talks louder than any sleaze can. This could be the start of something big, and whilst I usually love the underdogs, or the slightly different, I would think that this could well break the mainstream in a very big way. Watch this space.