"This is... bombastic," said one of the people I played this for. It's hard to argue with that: The Dresden Dolls call themselves "Brechtian punk," meaning they blend the heavy-handedness of punk with the overwrought drama of cabaret. That makes it sound hideously, guiltily entertaining-- which is what I expected before hearing the record.
If you've never seen their stage show, you can still get an eyeful from this album's black-and-white liner photos, which show the duo swooning or flopped like cast-off goth toys. As a performance artist-- before we knew what she could do to a piano-- Amanda Palmer used to pose as an eight-foot-tall "living statue" outside Harvard Square, dressed as in a thrift store bridal gown, blowing kisses or handing out roses for dollars. Clearly she doesn't shy from the spotlight. Behind her, drummer Brian Viglione looks to be the strong silent type: With his matching outfit and stern Jonathan Rhys-Meyers cheekbones, you'd expect to see him holding Palmer's bags at the fetish fair. But Viglione's both precise and tremendous as he locksteps behind Palmer, and his battery of percussion tics accentuate her lyrics.
As much as they namecheck Brecht, this album-- the Dolls' proper debut, following the out-of-print primer A Is for Accident-- runs the gamut from theatrical to poppy, from oldies to showtunes. Remember that piano and drums were all that Jerry Lee Lewis needed to record "Great Balls of Fire", and the Dolls can match that frenzy. The world is full of songs about depression, but isn't it a relief to hear someone act manic for a change-- as on "Girl Anachronism", where Palmer pummels the keys like her skirt's on fire while Viglione clatters like a drawerful of razor blades? Palmer's voice drips and chills through the damaged-little-girl songs, but she can also melt into confessionals with melodic melancholy, like Tori Amos' punky younger sister.
But the roles Palmer plays are even more intriguing. Sometimes she paints her characters cartoonishly broad, like the sinister little girl on "Missed Me" or the "I sound hurt because I am hurt" acting-out of "Girl Anachronistic"; other songs use the illusions more subtly. On "Coin Operated Boy" she describes the plastic boyfriend that gives her "love without complications," and the twist comes when she admits that she can't love a real boy because she's too difficult to be with. The stilted puppet-music shifts to an aching bridge that almost swirls her down the drain, until she stops, ties her strings back on and decides to act fake again.
As clever as the Dolls may be, they know they won't last if they're typecast as the band that writes catchy songs about hermaphrodites and self-mutilation; and you can hear them move to steadier terrain, with the conventional message (and torrential music) of "Truce", a song about a mature emotional compromise. But the listener still has to decide whether to believe the whole act: Are they out for self-pity? Is the whole act just a spectacle, like a young angst freak show? Or do they know how to make entertainment from misery, to purge evil and waltz on its carcass? Maybe I'm just sucked in by the voice, but I vote for the latter. And if it takes them a lot of broad strokes to do it, well, that's probably what punk-cabaret is all about.
