Popcorn Noises

Dum Dum Girls - “He Gets Me High”

I never quite bought into Dum Dum Girls’ leather-clad, switchblade-carrying shtick. Save for one or two songs on their debut album last year, that vintage sense of toughness rarely comes through in the music. Which is okay! Framing their sound against the backdrop of their image is a big part of what makes them a charismatic band. But if “He Gets Me High” proves anything, it’s that Dee Dee & Co. could subsist quite well on power-pop chops alone. Credit the increase in profile and thus recording budget, but where DDG once sounded monochromatically thin, canned, and grainy, they now employ a wide palate of full-bodied guitars and a rhythm section that punches more than it slaps. Combined with Dee Dee’s deeper, more grown-up, and more evocative presence on the mic, this song suggests an alternate universe where Katrina and The Waves were jagged underground stalwarts instead of bopping one-hit wonders. “He Gets Me High” is a song full of free and immediate pleasures, but whose guitar pop acumen sticks around in the back of your mind long after its three minute run.

runner-up: “Bedroom Eyes”