One Track Mind

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Los Angeles’ Dum Dum Girls is a dizzyingly referential act that happens to make some great rock ‘n roll music. As pertains to the former, let’s start with the group’s name, which is an homage to both Iggy Pop’s “Dum Dum Boys” from 1977′s The Idiot, as well as The Vaselines’ one and only full-length, 1989′s Dum-Dum. If those influences don’t adequately set the stage, the band is essentially the bedroom project of one Dee Dee, whose name can’t help but evoke those most famous of CBGB’s alums.

When Dee Dee set to record her debut, the eleven-track I Will Be (due March 30th on Sub Pop Records), she enlisted the help of three new friends, including Frankie Rose, whose previous work with Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts completes Dum Dum Girls’ sonic palette. It is a mishmash of distorted C-86 jangle, punk rock pep, and Spector’s wall of sound that Dee Dee has aptly termed “blissed out buzzsaw.” Oh yeah.

“Jail La La” is I Will Be‘s fourth song, a bouncy, lo-fi swirl incorporating all of the aforementioned touchstones. Dee Dee paints her vocals with broad, sweeping melodies over a hyperactive backbeat. Dum Dum Girls’ guitars don’t ring out crisply in the mix; instead, they get fuzzed out into oblivion, blanketing the track with a gritty, trebly tone. In total, the song feels like a good workout–the propulsiveness of the rhythm and the healthy clip of the tempo ensure the maintenance of a certain intensity. It is that intensity which makes Dum Dum Girls such an invigorating listen–they are a legitimately fun ban to listen to, all spirit and straightforward musical pleasure.