Brody Dalle – Diploid Love

Brody Dalle’s management team must have been tearing their hair out. The former Distillers frontwoman was one of the most recognizable alternative stars of the last decade, but rather than capitalizing on her band’s break up, Brody has drifted since 2006 – releasing only a lukewarm album under the Spinnerette banner in 2009 as she exchanged one rock star husband for another and overcame a crystal-meth addiction.

Eight years is a long time to twist in the wind, but if Diploid Love is the result, then Guitar Planet will happily wait another eight for her follow up. Brody still possesses a disenchanted air as she deliciously slurs her words in typical mid-2000s style. But she has infused her disenfranchised modus operandi with the kind of straight-ahead, groove driven, rock, normally associated with her husband (Josh Homme). The result is an effortlessly cool and stridently assured debut, overflowing with highly addictive hits in waiting.

Despite spending nearly a decade away from the limelight, Brody Dalle still feels like a superstar and, for once, the attitude she exudes is matched by an array of bristling, pommelling, and swirling guitar tracks. There are plenty of sonic surprises lurking in the ether; “Underworld” is bolstered by some brilliant Latin horns, “Dressed In Dreams” serves up arena-sized ice and “I Don’t Need Your Love” is brave enough to put a high and delicate vocal in the foreground. Full of ideas, brimming with energy and graced by superstar intangibles – whisper it – Diploid Love is the best and most interesting work of Brody’s career to date.