One of my favorite micro-genres of music for the last few years has been this poppy form of women-fronted grunge, which is inspired by 90s bands like Veruca Salt. The basic sound of distorted guitars with lighter vocals obviously appeals to me, but I also like the subversiveness of these bands, who twist what was a predominately male style of music and reclaim it to tell stories from a different point of view.
There are a bunch of artists making music like this right now, from Colleen Green to Bully to Potty Mouth to Veruca Salt themselves, but Nashville’s Daddy Issues might be the best of the bunch. Everything about this band, from their name to their sludgy riffs to the frank, emotionally complex lyrics, is the epitome of what this style of music is about. If you have an affinity for it like I do (and maybe even if you don’t), Deep Dream will blow you away.
I am wary of putting a great rock band like this into the potentially condescending “women who ROCK” box, but so much of what makes this album unique is how it uses a woman’s perspective to delve into subject matter that most men couldn’t really write about with any sort of authority. “I’m Not” deals with the aftermath of a sexual assault, and sums up what makes this band so good: it has catchy hooks and great harmonies, but is also much more than just a nostalgic grunge tune. There is real meaning and feeling in these songs, and frontwoman Jenna Moynihan conveys it with her voice and lyrics.
While there are more serious songs like that, Daddy Issues also have a sense of humor, as their name suggests. “Dog Years” is in the tried-and-true “I hate my ex” tradition, but takes it to comical heights with some truly savage lyrics; “I hope you choke on your own spit in your own bed” and “you should go home to Chicago and take a long walk off the Navy Pier” stand out. Album opener “Mosquito Bite” covers similar thematic material with a memorable riff and a clever metaphor of an ex that seemed important being “just a mosquito bite.”
But the song that I really geeked out for on this album is a cover of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer” that perfectly reimagines it in their own style, taking a song I had always associated with this very male nostalgia and twisting it into something that feels new. When the song isn’t being sung by one of the “boys” it has a completely different feeling, and it’s the clearest example of how this band revitalizes nostalgic sounds with a fresh perspective.
The Noise Made By People 