I must be in a particularly dark mood lately, all of my recent music has been screaming, wailing, and potentially violent women, lucky Sparky, huh? And no, I haven’t gotten Courtney Love’s newest CD yet, though I admit to being a huge fan of Live Through This.

I’m currently obsessed with The Dresden Dolls, who I found at one of Borders listening stations, however they didn’t have the right CD in the slot so I ended up getting it at Best Buy instead on a whim without hearing it. The description at Borders was ‘fans of PJ Harvey will like it’, which is true I suppose. I hadn’t heard any of PJ Harvey’s newer stuff, the only CD I own of hers is from the early 90’s (Rid of Me), and the lead singer Amanda Palmer does have a deep, strong, dark-edged voice, and she has the same raw emotion. There’s also a little bit of Nina Hagen in the mix also.

We were at Borders again tonight and I actually did listen in on PJ Harvey’s latest, from the few tracks I heard before being dragged away to check out, she sounds as if she’s mellowed out a lot. I hope the same does not happen with The Dresden Dolls, this is the freshest, most original CD I’ve heard in ages. The female vocalist also plays piano (big fave instrument of mine), and she pounds away with the ferocity of Tori Amos or even Nina Simone.

The cover art (and name) originally caught my attention, it looked very 30’s cabaret but with a gothic/punk slant. The actual music is not particularly dark, more sarcastic and sometimes angry, but it does honestly sound like gothic cabaret punk. It’s not anywhere close heavy metal at all, but for weird some reason Jack Off Jill comes to mind, though actually Switchblade Symphony would be a much better comparison. The lyrics and music are all over the place but flow together nicely, from the whimsy and heartbreak of “Coin-Operated Boy”, the sarcasm of “Good Day”, the smart psychotic punk energy of “Girl Anachronism”, and a retro ballad worthy of Meatloaf with “The Jeep Song”. Every song on the album is amazing and redeems my faith in current music.

But listen for yourself, the first playing sort of caught me off guard because it was so different, but now the majority of the album is stuck in my head. And visit their gorgeous website, there are photos, downloads, videos, lyrics and more. I’d love to see them in concert, there is a video of “Girl Anachronism” on the CD and they look as wild as they sound, it looks like they’re scheduled to be on Jimmy Kimmel Live on August 19th so “check your local listings” as they say.

Speaking of talk shows, I saw Sonic Youth on either Letterman or Conan a few weeks ago and they played a track from their new album Sonic Nurse which got me hooked and I had to go out and get it. I have one of their 90’s albums also (Experimental Jet Set...) and thought they were good but they really have a deeper, richer more listenable sound now. I’m not big on guitar haze music usually, but this album will stick with you. It might be my imagination, but the recurring hook, which starts with the “hit”, “Unmade Bed”, and seems to continue through the album, reminds me or The Cars “Moving in Stereo”, but I’m a big 1980’s New Waver and part of my brain never got past 1984 musically so I’m predisposed to hearing strange things like that.

More weird and wonderful female vocal fronted albums I’ve recently been obsessed with include the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Fever To Tell, Pretty Girls Make Graves The New Romance, and The Sounds Living in America. I’m a girl band fan, I admit it.

I also got some free credit from Amazon and picked up an early Kim Deal side project, The Amps. The music is good but the recording sounds a little too garagey (that’s not a word, sorry). I had been on a Pixies, Breeders & Belly kick lately so I thought I’d pick up this one too. I think I’m going to need to break it in a bit more to get used to it. Did I mention I never listen to the radio anymore? I actually don’t even have the stations set in my car radio, I’d rather discover my music over the internet and from word of mouth.