The term "dress-up" tends to be used as a pejorative in indie circles, typically indicating an artist who seems to be reaching more than grasping. But Miss Derringer's custom duds are no more a put-on than Kings of Leon's Shaggy wardrobe or the Decemberists faux Victorian accoutrements. The L.A. band plays its parts to the hilt: A sculptor dealing in darkly whimsical phantasmagoria, singer Liz McGrath appears in a sequined baton-twirler leotard with a goth marching-band helmet and prison tattoo for the band's third and best album, Winter Hill, which is a change from the Weimar rockabilly chanteuse she played on 2006's Lullabies. Enlisting local designers like Adele Mildred and Winter Rosebudd, she's a West Coast Karen O, but aims for retro composure rather than punk disarray. The men who back her wear black as a nod to the Man in Black but accessorize like Mike Ness: matching wallet chains, western shirts, black armbands, heavy eye make-up.
To their considerable credit, Miss Derringer sound exactly like they look and don't need the look to sound good. Just as they mix and match fashions, they blend country, punk, rockabilly, showtunes, cabaret, and New Wave into a surprisingly sturdy and seamless sound. With faster tempos and more pronounced hooks than their previous albums, Winter Hill is a concept album of sorts about the Irish Gang Wars of the 1960s, when the McLaughlin Gang and the Winter Hill Gang made Boston a bloody battlefield. These songs are the band's playful approximations of what might have been playing on the radio as gangsters drove to hit jobs or slumped in their seats during stakeouts. Accordingly, the band build from period-specific sounds, but it's highly unlikely-- okay, outright impossible-- that James "Whitey" Bulger or Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi were listening to X and Social Distortion while whacking McLaughlin soldiers or laundering money. Perhaps because Miss Derringer are enough removed in time from their music heroes, they don't have a kneejerk reverence toward Carl Perkins, Lesley Gore, or Blondie, which leaves them free to compress half a century of pop history into short, sharp, smart pop songs.
On Winter Hill, Miss Derringer are witty synthesists. "Death By Desire" begins with a spoken-word intro and ends with some Explosions in the Sky guitars, as if girl-group drama is no different from post-rock drama. The chorus of "Bulletproof Heart" sounds like there's a skip in their Shangri-La's record: "He don't! He don't! He don't!" sings Liz McGrath, and you expect her to continue with "hang around with the gang no more!" Likewise, "Drop Shot Dead", one of the few songs to explicitly address the gang wars, (mis)quotes Roy Orbison. "I close my eyes/ And I dream away," McGrath sings with a sly hiccup in her voice, before the song rockets into a surf-guitar chorus that's one of the catchiest and most undeniable hooks on the album.
In fact, the fashion is inseparable from the music, not just as another manifestation of their influences but as an emotional scrim. Despite its period trappings, Winter Hill is a heavy, dark, and desperate album, and songs like "Mausoleum" and "Heartbreaks & Razorblades" have real emotional stakes. Consider the opening lines of "Heartbreaks & Razorblades", which McGrath sings with only a spare guitar for accompaniment: "We found him late last night/ Lying on his side/ With a note by his side/ And I try to block the sight from my mind." She makes it a very real moment, cutting through the sequins and make-up to invest those lines with a sense of real loss*. Winter Hill* thrums with chilly heartbreak that belies the liberties Miss Derringer take with traditions and influences, as if the only way they could address subjects so raw and painful is with lots of eyeliner.
