Love Is Dead And We Killed Her

I was reading Las Vegas Weekly and read a short article about a band playing in the area called Doll Skin. I'm too old to actually go to a concert, but with my Amazon Music I could just call up their album and listen. I'm glad I did, because their album, Love Is Dead And We Killed Her, is terrific.

I'm a sucker for all-female bands, which Doll Skin is. Because of their gender, they get lumped in with other girl groups, so are compared to bands like The Donnas, The Runaways, or The Go-Go Girls gone death metal. But regardless of their sex, Doll Skin is a very tight band, with lots of great hooks and riffs. The music is pop with the overtone of hard-core metal.

The band formed in Phoenix, with the members attending a School of Rock, which I didn't realize was a real thing. The lead singer is Sydney Dolezal, who sounds like a bit like Brenda Carlisle except when she gives one of those Satanic, deep-throated growls common to death metal. I was also impressed with the drumming of Meghan Herring.

Lyrically, Doll Skin are solid if unexceptional. The most provocative is the title track, which appears to be about a woman getting revenge on someone who has sexually assaulted/date raped her:

"Walking the streets with a switchblade
With the best pressed suit I own
Got away with it all
Blood boiling to the bone
Who says my business is yours
When you're holding the door
No way he can escape tonight
It's the last time he'll call you a whore"

"Mark My Words" seems to be about the same subject:

"I always get my revenge
I'll come out on top in the end
Mark my words
It's never been fair, you favored the boy
That played me and used me as a toy
Mark my words
The needle goes in, the ink on your skin
That will remind you of the hell that I've been living in"

If most of the songs are angry, there is at least one that is sentimental, the closing track, "Homesick":

"I promise to come back soon
I'm feeling homesick
And I miss you too, oh
Losing track of how I'm feeling now
Try to keep my head up in the clouds
I promise to come back soon, oh I'm coming home"

Doll Skin is a band to keep an eye on. I'm sorry I didn't see them live.