A loud guitar can cover a multitude of sins, from rote melodies to empty sentiments. It's one of rock music's last great tricks: where there's excessive volume there's somewhere to hide.
There are many places to hide on Daddy Issues' debut LP, 'Deep Dream', but they don't get used. For as loud and sludgy as the riffs are here, they’re only part of the story. Never are they allowed free rein over lyrics that veer from warm to acerbic, while every slab of distortion is buttressed by three-part harmonies.
The record’s sleeve photo finds guitarist Jenna Moynihan ‘making out’ with herself in a jacket borrowed from White Reaper frontman Tony Esposito and the two bands are comfortable bedfellows.
Where White Reaper’s ‘The World’s Best American Band’ breathed fresh life into larger-than-life arena rock through its pop nous earlier this year, ‘Deep Dream’ does the same with a grunge template that’s often been mistreated.
Daddy Issues - with Moynihan joined by bassist Jenna Mitchell and drummer Emily Maxwell - find extra ballast in the swampy production here and utilise it in opposition to hooks that have the minerals to overpower the racket. The songs have been there for a while - see the many highlights on their ‘Can We Still Hang’ EP - but they’ve not possessed the gut-level power of In Your Head or Dog Years before.
The former is also one of a number of lyrical standouts. Beginning with a killer “Fuck you, forever" it then deliberately, sardonically dismantles an ex’s assumptions. Moynihan is doing just fine. “You’re delusional,” she sings. “You’re a pet fish. Assume I tell myself that chick with you’s an ugly bitch.”
Boring Girls picks up the baton. Dripping with sarcasm, it finds Moynihan in the orbit of some band dude who’s too happy on the pedestal he’s created for himself. “Boring boy,” runs the closing line. “Don’t hurt yourself. I don’t think they have guitars in hell.”
The hazy, undulating I’m Not is the record’s centrepiece, though. A song about the importance of believing and understanding survivors of abuse, it threads a lyric inspired by Maxwell’s experiences around a typically boisterous refrain. It has the capacity to stop you dead in your tracks: “If you want you can read my diary. I’ve got nothing left to lose. I’ve been losing since I lost my virginity.”
‘Deep Dream’ reveals itself over time, shifting from atmospheric and beguiling to something close to anthemic. It seems trite to describe a record with such a layered approach like that but, fundamentally, this is a great bunch of pop songs that ricochet between head and heart.
As a cherry on top they even take Don Henley’s Boys of Summer for a spin, keeping its well-worn wheels turning for a while longer thanks to a molasses thick new arrangement and fresh, canny harmonies. They make it their own, just as they make grunge-pop sound vital again by delivering whip-smart melodies and lyrics as though they were just conjured from thin air.
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