Dum Dum Girls
I Will Be
Sub Pop
March 30

By Matt Kiernan

Noise pop band Dum Dum Girls release their debut album, I Will Be, an album filled with sugary pop hooks that look back to the era of C-86 from the late 1980s.

After spending the past year releasing singles on various indie labels, it was becoming a question of when the band would put out a proper full-length. The Dum Dum Girls seem to have found an excellent home on the prestigious indie label Sub Pop.

From the get-go, the influences on the band can be heard with the sounds of the indie pop bands The Vaselines, Black Tambourine and Tiger Trap being the roots of the Dum Dum Girls’ style.

“It Only Takes One Night” opens the album to a pounding drumbeat and distorted and reverberated voice of lead singer Dee Dee with a chorus that’s straightforwardly catchy of words from the song’s title.

“Bhang Bhang, I’m a Burnout” is like a children’s song with the female members of the group coming together to sing the ironically happy chorus.

The Dum Dum Girls slow it down on the track “Rest of Our Lives,” bringing a nice change of pace for a heartfelt song that looks back to the pinnacle days of Jesus and the Mary Chain.

“Blank Girl” is an excellent C-86 duet, with the backup vocalist having a voice that’s reminiscent of Stephen Pastel, lead singer of indie pop group The Pastels.

The band is able to use distortion and noise at perfect levels so that it doesn’t become overwhelming to the listener and not so much as to hide the meaning and intricacies of each song. This may be due to the fact that Sub Pop recorded the album, using their years of experience to master the levels of noise.

I Will Be is a wonderful album for the genre of noise pop, not even seeming to come from this decade but directly from the era in which the band idolizes.