The Devil's BJ : The Dresden Dolls LP

Whether you know it or not, you've already met someone like Amanda Palmer. She's on Livejournal, or Myspace, or both, and her blog rocks a picture of a pale little cartoon baby slitting its wrists and crying blood, with a title like "see my beautiful innards," or some damn thing. Those girls are a dime a dozen, and they deserve to be laughed back into their suburban bedrooms, where they can shed bitter tears, surrounded by their Trent Reznor posters, their leather-bound journals, and their massive collections of Jhonen Vasquez comics.

Like a recovering alcoholic who can't stand to see people drink, I have a very low tolerance for people who haven't given up on Goth. (Especially since everyone knows that the music peaked in the late 80s. No band will ever surpass The Cure. I mean, duh.) When Marilyn Manson released a decent series of metal albums, inappropriately marketed as "Goth rock," the subculture became glutted with high school students. We're all grown up now, and most of us have moved on, but those that haven't have started their own bands. Palmer's Dresden Dolls are the latest and most famous example.

When I decided to review the Dresden Dolls' LP, I intended to listen to the album in its entirety. I succeeded, but it was painful. By the time I hit the halfway point, I was frantically checking the track list, sure that I had to be near the end. Every song seems to stretch into infinity, offering nothing but Palmer's two-note vocal range and her equally limited emotional palette. (Over the course of the album, the Dolls manage to sound both mad and really mad. You can tell when they switch from one mood to another because Palmer starts yelling. Truly, there is no end to the lack of innovation.) The Dresden Dolls crank out anger-management show tunes with monotonous glee; all of their best moments are stolen from Tori Amos or Tom Waits. There's nothing on The Dresden Dolls that you can't find in a better version on Boys for Pele or Rain Dogs.

At the center of it all is Palmer, camping it up with squeaks, bellows, and shrieks, which, by trying to be both cathartic and ironic, manage to be neither. In her frantic bid for attention, she does everything but fart into the microphone. Her lyrics showcase an unappealing persona: lines like "I want to do more than survive, I want to rub it in your face" mark her as a particularly annoying brand of histrionic depressive, one who believes that her pain gives her license to lash out at others. Her occasional efforts at humor fall flat because the album is oversaturated with self-pity and melodrama; Palmer can't manage to laugh at herself while licking her wounds. One line, however, does stand out: "I want to give myself a B.J." It seems remarkably apropos, in light of the fact that the whole album sounds like a painful, twisted form of masturbation.

For more reviews by Sady O, check out Girlysounds and Culturecatch