Dresden Dolls Redux

I wish I could say that the new Dresden Dolls album, Yes, Virginia, is as good as their first album. But alas, it's not.

It's not a bad record per se. Some songs like “Modern Moonlight” and “Sex Changes” have a nice ring to them. And the abortion song “Mandy Goes to Med School” certainly stands out as the most memorable song I've heard thus far this year. (Though whether it's memorable in a good way is another matter.)

As a whole, though, I prefer the first album to the second. As much as I like “Modern Moonlight” and other tunes on the album, they're just not as memorable as such first album tunes as “Girl Anachronism,” “Gravity” or even “Coin-Operated Boy.”

Maybe in a year or two, I'll believe differently, but for now, I don't.

I did like the recent Dresden Dolls Paradise DVD though. It's mostly composed of live performances, and those alone are pretty entertaining. However, the two bonus videos on the DVD are very well done. And the ambiguous end of the “Coin-Operated Boy” (a homage to the horror film May, perhaps?) is very good. And not just because lead singer Amanda Palmer looks so good in a corset...