Dresden Dolls "Dresden Dolls" 8 ft *** 1/2 Sounds like: Brechtian cabaret or the soundtrack to the best musical yet to be made.
"So, you're the talk of the town."
"Which town?" asked pianist and vocalist Amanda Palmer, her face still caked with white costume makeup and hand-drawn eyebrows. Brian Viglione, her drummer and partner in musical genius, sits next to her, anticipating the answer.
In the past three months, the Dresden Dolls have gone from a do-it-yourself Boston band to one of the most desired duos you have yet to hear. Sounds impossible, but in this musical environment in which (1) MTV and radio have both sold their souls to Satan and (2) Mainstream artists do not actually exist, such deviations from the norm are frustratingly rare. Like stars in the D.C. sky, it is beautiful when it happens. It would just be a lot nicer if it happened more frequently.
So how did it happen, that this band, a "Cabaret throwback band," according to Palmer, go from being a blip in the Northeast to being, as Viglione proudly said, "on the same label as Deicide and Sepultura"?
"We were going to sign to a really small label in Boston," Palmer said. "And literally on the eve of signing the contract there were all these conflicts with the label and I sat down and thought about it and I realized that there was nothing that the label could do for us that we couldn't technically do for ourselves with a lot of hard work and no sleep."
Thus in true DIY fashion, the Dresden Dolls leveraged the recording, production and promotion of their self-titled debut full-length with a mountain of debt. Through the help of friends, Internet message boards and word of mouth, not to mention one solid live show, they found themeselves signed to Roadrunner Records a year later, and with good reason.
"We could've kept sort of going it on our own, and I could've kept running our own label," Palmer said. "But if that was the case we wouldn't have been able to do a tour like this. I would still be at home behind my computer, stuffing envelopes and stuff."
Thankfully, after playing D.C. at the beginning of this month, the Dresden Dolls are not looking to slow down.
"We have several things on the table right now," Viglione said. "It's going to be a matter of what pops up first."
Of these possibilities, Viglione mentioned the possibility of touring the United States or going to Europe, but made it clear that for the next few weeks, the focus would be on new material and a follow-up video to "Girl Anachronism," which is available for download on the band's Web site and should be in rotation on MTV2 in the near future.
With a dozen songs covering everything relationship-wise (including parents, exes and personal affairs), "Dresden Dolls" is an exciting and refreshing debut. Even more important, though, is that it is a smart record that everybody can enjoy - a rare and special creature crafted by two talents of such brilliance that it will live on in the annals of music history for all time.
