Female Rockers are Alive and Well

Brody Dalle is an Australian female rocker best known for her time as lead singer and guitarist for The Distillers and Spinnerette and she has just released her first solo album. Diploid Love is awesome. The album, which is unfortunately only nine tracks, easily leaves you wanting more. It is a fast-paced, meaningful and memorable album that is reminiscent of the great female rockers of the ‘80s – most closely relating to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, although there seems to be some Pat Benatar in the mix as well (especially on “Meet The Foetus / Oh the Joy”).

Diploid Love has some minor electronic components, like the drum track on “Carry On,” but it’s not a detraction to the album. Rather, it helps to simply modernize that “classic” sound that Dalle masters. Her voice has a thick rasp that is rarely heard today, but just adds to that kick-ass presence with which Dalle with seems to carry herself.

This is one of those rare albums where it seems like the artist is making music because it’s honest-to-god what they love to do, rather than making music they think will earn them money. You can hear the passion she put into the music and the fun she had recording it, especially on the more upbeat songs like “Rat Race.”

Diploid Love starts out incredibly strong, then there are few songs that wane toward the middle, and then picks up to finish strong. This, in turn, makes it clear that Dalle and her team put a lot of effort into thinking about track order, which is yet another detail reminiscent of that classic rock attitude. Dalle created an album that has an incredibly interesting sound that is hard to categorize into a specific genre. No matter what genre you may call it, Diploid Love is an astounding album.