Sound: Who started this trend to club-ify punk is under debate, but what is undeniable is that Spinnerette are excellent at stoking its flames. The group’s self-titled debut album from Anthem Records is proof of their wickedness to stir heady emotions in their audiences and magnify the level of excitement. With the hard rock snarls of Joan Jett and the melodically encrusted swivels of Blondie’s Debbie Harry, lead singer Brody Dalle is the captain of this rules-be-damned fleet consisting of Alain Johannes, Tony Bevilacqua, and Jack Irons. The quartet runs through a gamut of club-faceted tracks from the orchestral overtones and country twang of the guitar chords in “Impaler” to the soaring riffs and slow quivering beats of “The Walking Dead” and the ragged distortions that pepper “A Prescription For Mankind.” Spinnerette splatter their punk grooves with club motifs that accentuate their power pop propulsion and glam-rock shrubbery.
The chorus-line kicks of “Sex Bomb” amplify the punk-racked vibrations to a glam-rock pitch, and the synth rock ducts of “Driving Song” produce a rotating action that stimulates the lust factor in the listener’s hormones to a heighten level. The bouts of lusty pumping along “Rebellious Palpitations” fires off rippling discharges, and the swirling synths twisting and sailing across “Cupid” and “Baptized By Fire” are pierced by shooting guitar sparks. The ridged flusters crackling along “A Spectral Suspension” have a molten beating, and the soft inclines in the lambent sensations railing “Distorting A Code” have a malleable feel. Dalle’s vocals can be as coarse as sandpaper rubbing again your skin or as mellifluous as the lilting tones of a sweet siren. She shifts and shapes her vocals to the conditions of the songs, and makes them jump at the listener. // 9
Lyrics and Singing: The lyrics have a recurring theme of seeking greener pastures like in “Baptized By Fire” as Dalle touts, “I’ll be sailing on / I’m going to the Sun.” The words give closure to open wounds like in “Driving Song” when Dalle professes, “If all the love in this world isn’t enough… Who do you trust? / So long my friend / We’ll never meet again.” And sometimes Dalle becomes combative like in “Cupid” where she asserts, “Don’t say that you aim to please / Don’t say that you love, ” and in “A Prescription For Mankind” as she spouts, “Are you going to teach me the lessons of life? ” Dalle’s vocals are like decorative tiles on a clean canvass, she gives these songs a flashy persona that others would ideally like emulate. // 8
Impression: Spinnerette’s self-titled debut album is a synthesis of club and punk motifs making the songs a modern glam-rock hybrid. The music heightens sensations while keeping to a generic power pop formation. No matter how trendy the music may sound, Dalle’s vocals give these tracks a bold persona that others would ideally like to follow. The tracks have a smoothness that buffers the toughness in Dalle’s vocals, and melodically coats the tunes to a power pop grinding. Spinnerette have made an album that pumps up audiences, and showcases a vocalist who can make something bold and fiery out of a clean sheet of canvass. // 9
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