At the turn of the decade, “garage-inspired girls with jangly guitars” was the name of the game. Three bands stood proudly on the podium: Vivian Girls, Best Coast, and Dum Dum Girls. All three offered catchy, two-minute tracks about love set to the sounds of the sun. Last week, Vivian Girls disbanded. As late as two summers ago, the other two were still using their tunes as a way to confess their sorrows rather than explore new sonic or lyrical territory.
In late 2012, Dum Dum Girls released End of Daze EP, a set of songs that said sayonara to sadness. And, as a precursor to their latest, Dee Dee Penny penned an open letter in which she swore off heartbreak as inspiration. Too True, the Girls’ third full-length, makes good on that promise by delivering a smartly strung together record that sounds like the first they’ve made for the sake of, well, making a record.
Too True does, however, get off to a slower start than their last long player, Only in Dreams. Whereas that record offered up more catchy melodies than you can cram down an earhole in two lifetimes, a lot of Too True‘s tracks lack strong verses. Yet the absence of melodies is more than made up for with another strong boost in production and a slew of lasting choruses.
Unsurprisingly, the drums drive every track on Too True. At times they feel as light as a feather; at others they boom big enough to fill an arena. On album standout “Too Good to Be True,” they manage to be both. What is surprising, though, is the instrumentation that rounds out the record. The addition of synths and a bigger bass (as well as more textured guitars) makes Too True sound much meatier than the group’s previous releases.
That full sound is crucial when it comes to Too True‘s choruses, which rank among the most memorable the Girls have ever done. The string of tracks that starts with the first ballad (“Are You Okay?”) and ends with the last (“Trouble is My Name”) features a killer chorus at every stop — especially on Too True highlight “Lost Boys and Girls Club,” whose only deserving visual accompaniment is a never ending loop of this.
Too True ends with my two favorite tracks, “Under These Hands” and “Trouble is My Name.” The former is a reminder of the Girls’ previous, sunnier sound; the latter is arguably their best ballad to date. Both show Dee Dee in a more vulnerable state than anywhere else on Too True, and both are full of her go-to cliché phrases. No matter how artificial the words may appear on paper, however, Dee Dee sings them true. Seriously, Dee Dee: read me the phonebook. Please.
Too True isn’t as instantly arresting as Only in Dreams, but it does reveal itself upon repeated listens to be just as engaging, if not more so. For the first time Dum Dum Girls sound like a band set to make music for music’s sake. There’s an air of confidence on each of these tracks, and I’m betting that breeze has something to do with Dee Dee’s newly found sense of self. Too True marks an enormous shift forward, but it assuredly won’t be the Girls’ last. Rather, it’s a temporary resting point — a place where we can sneak a glance over our shoulders and then eagerly look forward at what’s to come.
Too True