Dum Dum Girls • He Gets Me High EP

Dum Dum Girls have hardly wasted the acclaim lavished upon last year’s excellent debut, I Will Be, and all the dogged touring and hard work has paid off. A second album is already in the works, with a new and reportedly cleaner-sounding sonic palette to work from. As an interim release He Gets Me High shows all the signs of a strengthened confidence without taking that larger step to a fuzz-free recording, and nowhere is that confidence more apparent than on poised opener ‘Wrong Feels Right’. Right from the first few seconds, frontwoman Dee Dee is in fiercer-than-usual form as the song builds from double-time percussion to the group’s most ebullient chorus to date.

Elsewhere, the single ‘He Gets Me High’ is the one inclusion that wouldn’t sound out of place on I Will Be, with echoes of the album’s dazed harmonies and subject matter, while ballad ‘Take Care Of My Baby’ is reminiscent of early Tanya Donelly in the way it threads out swoon after swoon like a daisy chain. Rounding out the EP is a raucous version of The Smiths’ ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’; while there’s a sense that a lot of the original’s meaning is sacrificed for sound, it’s nevertheless a decent cover and the sound is a pleasing one. More importantly, it’s a sound that Dum Dum Girls – imitators notwithstanding – can now truly call their own.

[Sub Pop; February 28, 2011]

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