REVIEW: The Dresden Dolls - No, Virginia
These people really do have to be one of my favorite bands of all time. The Dresden Dolls are a Boston-based duo comprised of pianist/keyboardist/vocalist Amanda Palmer and drummer Brian Viglione. These two combine Punk Rock, Cabaret, and prose poetry with innovation, double-entendre, and Wiemar Republic imagery, complete with a performing arts troupe and 1920s Wiemar-doll get up. The group acheived fame in 2002 with their debut album, The Dresden Dolls, which soared them to monumental heights of popularity (and with a song like "Coin-Operated Boy", how could it not have?) and created an entire sub-sub-sub-sub culture among angsty teenaged girls, sexually-disoriented boys, and artfags alike. Now on their third release, the Dolls aren't quite the famous rock stars they were for a short stint, but they still are going strong, with no signs of slowing down.
No, Virginia is an album of B-sides, unreleased tracks, and hidden material following their 2006 sophomore album, Yes, Virginia. The beauty of this album is in it's break away from all of the previous styles that the Dolls have displayed. Certainly less prose-oriented than their debut, as was their follow up, but it's distinctly different than the disenfranchised, almost-political-but-entirely-too-fun-to-be-yet-another-Bush-bashing-album feel of Yes, Virginia. There's a subtle shift here; the kind of thing that foreshadows where a band is going without abandoning their roots. There's a way with which Amanda Palmer sings - a certain spittle hitting your face the way they never did before - that we simply aren't accustomed to. It's also thematically formatted, with heavy focus on social perversity and stories about outcasts, art students, starving cinematiques, insane playwrights, and general weirdos. It's Metropolis, it's Brazil!, it's Cabaret if Liza died in the end. It's provocative, it's edgy, it's risquè, it's... absolutely brilliant.
From "Dear Jenny" to "Boston",Amanda takes you on a journey through the lives of a myriad of characters. There's Mary, the struggling playwright, teased through high school who goes on to make a film based on the very things she was accused of being. There's that guy you knew (and probably still do) who looks for love on the Internet, just to be shit on spectacularly. There's even the egotistical actress and the triumphant outcast; the tortured author and the child molester. Oh, and the dysfunctional couple who race to the finish line of their relationship, leaving a trail of one-night stands in their wake. To boot, they cover The Psychedelic Furs.
The Dolls' ability to constantly evolve and reinvent themselves without abandoning their core fan base is something of note, and a refreshing break from the massive sell-out syndrome that plagues so many talented underground bands. Fame didn't ruin them, and I always feel like I'm discovering more aspects of Palmer's personality with each release. Instead of changing the style to what people expect, adore, or demand, Palmer and Viglione insist on evolving at their own pace, content to reveal parts of their perverse world one segment at a time. This album continues that tradition, satiating the masses' taste for the absurd that brought them the popularity, while simultaneously sailing right over their heads. A stunning feat.
Strikingly original and cohesive for an album of miscellaneous cut tracks, I would highly recommend it to anyone, for any reason, at any time.