"Only In Dreams" is an incredibly polished girl-group garage-pop jangle-rock record centered around real and substantial loss (not just your run-of-the mill heartbreak) that only gets better with each and every listen. Dum Dum Girls' front-woman Dee Dee lost her mother in 2009 to a rather unexpected and virulent form of cancer, and this record is, for the most part, a document of that loss. While nearly every review of this record has noted the band's move from lo-fi to hi-fi, as well as the death of Dee Dee's mom as the lyrical impetus for the album, I've yet to see anyone discuss how the two may be intertwined; how maybe such a tragedy found the Girls no longer wanting to hide behind a wall of fuzzy sound and irony that ultimately distanced themselves from their listeners. With lyrics this heart-wrenching and honest, it's hard not to read their move toward sonic clarity as a break from detached hipsterism altogether toward something more real and sincere. As a result, "Only In Dreams, coupled with the band's fantastic "He Gets Me High" ep (which, btw, contains "Take Care Of My Baby," one of my top three songs of 2011), made Dum Dum Girls one of the few truly essential bands of 2011.
"Teardrops On My Pillow"
"Take Care Of My Baby" from the "He Gets Me High" ep
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