You've read the CV by now. Kicked out of Catholic girls school. Dabbled in heroin. Moved from Australia to LA. Married Rancid mainman Tim Armstrong. Left him for Josh Homme. Snared a big bucks major label deal. And you've looked on with vague disbelief as cultural commentators have leapt to their slide rules. Disruptive childhood plus rampant starf*cking equals - kerching - the New Courtney Love. Quite rightly, you've remained unconvinced.
It takes precisely two songs and a severely ripped larynx to set the record straight. Although the musical similarities to Hole are undeniable - roughly, the raging self-immolation of 'Teenage Whore' tied to the sharp pop nous of 'Celebrity Skin' - Brody Dalle is clearly more than just a wannabe making all the right moves. She's what Kelly Osbourne dreams of being: a fierce, furious, hugely talented, utterly unstoppable, cast iron personality who doesn't just stamp her presence on this album but pukes it up, spraying bile and venom.
How is that different to Courtney? On paper, they don't sound hugely dissimilar. But the pat phrase the New Courtney Love doesn't even begin to cover the many layers of dysfunction contained within this album. Whereas with Courtney you always felt she was tormented equally by ambition and a hatred of that ambition, Dalle appears both more fragile and more f*cked up: at times an innocent hoping to fall in love, at others a cynical husk screwed by the world.
She lives her life not in black and white, but black and red. Hatred and devotion, nihilism and heartbreak, death and anger. The album sleeve is littered with disturbed physicality: razor blades, severed limbs, blood stains, decapitated torsos. The cover appears to be a crucified naked woman, blood gushing from a wound just below her breasts. The plastic slip case that comes with the CD contains a film of thick, viscous red liquid. It's a messy, pointedly brutal package.
Dalle's grand talent is to marry all this to an exhilarating tune. 'The Gallow Is God' is slow burning and irresistible, with a chorus just waiting to infect FM radio. 'Hall Of Mirrors' is self-loathing at a sharp punk pace, the nail chewing disgust of "I sell souls at the side of the road/would you like to take a number?" and "don't waste my time/come on, get what you come for" sounding like a supremely messed up singalong. 'The Hunger' is just astonishing, a gentle reverie that kicks off into a rasping howl and a scream that sucks that marrow from your bones.
It's at her moments of vulnerability, though (when she's singing lines like "I eat myself stupid/I starve myself smart" and "just tonight I would lay here for you") that it becomes clear who and what Dalle truly is. She may be the New Courtney Love, at times even the Punk PJ Harvey, but she also has a depth of emotion that was last displayed by Kurt Cobain. It's taken almost a decade for Nirvana's legacy to find a worthy channel. Now let's see if she's strong enough to take on the frenzy.
by Ian Watson