Dollhouse

Reviews

Dollhouse The First Day of Spring EP

I had the good fortune of reviewing this New York City hardcore band’s self-titled demo a few months back, and this debut 7″ picks right up where that excellent release left off. This is a great band. Raw, ripping punk with personal, vulnerable lyrics about mental health and abuse; heavy in both delivery and concept. First track “The Shadow Baby” was on the demo, but this version has rougher vocals and a killer riff that immediately creeps into your brain and nestles in. “This is Heaven” starts with a fast, dense vocal delivery that is spoken at first and then screamed. Like much of DOLLHOUSE’s lyrical content, the words are a candid and unsettling description of self-harm and sexual abuse. The song ends with “I was destined for fame at such a young age / But it was taken away by some pervert / And no one knows what really happened / I can’t remember a thing before eleven / This is heaven.” That is some heavy shit. The writing on this record comes across as someone grappling with trauma rather than just being shocking or exploitative, which cannot be an easy thing to do. Earnestness to this degree without some obfuscation of meaning or the distance of irony is rare and moving. “Die So Pretty” is a raw punk rager that has some references to angels, another repeated symbol on this and the previous release. “The First Day of Spring” is surprising for ending with acoustic guitar strumming with the punk mayhem. Tremendous record if you are okay with the emotional heft. Highly, highly recommended.

Dollhouse Summer Love demo cassette

NYC’s DOLLHOUSE fucking knocks it out with this excellent demo. First of all, the haunted Blythe doll artwork makes me uneasy and fits the music perfectly. These songs definitely fit under the hardcore umbrella but with darker, post-punk guitar leads that are simple and effective. The first song “Summer Love” starts out with an aggressive 1-2-1-2 stompy beat and two-chord attack pattern but is tempered by a six-note guitar line that turns the fury into creepiness. The rest of the tape follows suit with a level of consistency and continuity that sounds like an established band’s proper LP. The lyrics are frequently introspective and vulnerable and are delivered with the higher-pitched screams of someone on the verge of losing it. These songs cover some seriously dark territory like self-harm, drug abuse, and suicide, but they are written in such a poetic way that doesn’t glamorize or sensationalize them but rather give insight from a voice that sounds like they have seen it firsthand. For example, “The Shadow Baby” has the lines, “You’re dumb if you trust a friend / Dumb if you trust a lover / The whole world is meant to make you live in the shadow of another / If my mother was dead I would have joined her by now.” There are moments like this in every song that give me pause because they sound so emotionally raw and heavy. Definitely check this out for some excellent tense and affecting hardcore with lyrical depth. I look forward to their next release.