If you’ve been paying attention with your good ear, you’ll already be familiar with Cultured Vulture favourites DOLLS; having popped up a few times in the past on these electronic pages of ours. In fact, they were Your New Favourite Band a little while back and all, when we caught up with the hard-rocking London duo for a quick Q&A. They should still be your new favourite band in all honesty, and latest single ‘Kid Kannibal’ does all it needs and more to prove that.
DOLLS have been touring hard and fast this year, racking up some serious mileage and stage time, and it’s immediately when listening to ‘Kid Kannibal’. There’s a taut riffage and groove that can only stem from a tightness of these two performing in unison so consistently. This kind of synchronicity allows for the pair to build tension on a rigid and restrained rhythm before uncoiling like a snake ready to strike and letting loose wholeheartedly, but never sounding loose in a shambolic way. This is looseness in the sense of freedom.
Both drummer Belinda Conde and singer/guitarist Jade Ellins are on top form here; Conde keeps things steady on her solid backbone beats, regimented and concise until the time comes to go off on one like Animal; Ellins delivers some sleek sidewinding blues riffs and thrashes out some meaty grunge chords – not to mention her powerhouse purr of a vocal style that strikes somewhere between Stevie Nicks and Joan Jett. There’s some sweet backing vocals that make themselves known in an Arctic Monkeys on AM or Queens of the Stone Age in party mood kind of way too.
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