Record Label: Blackheart Records
Genre: Power Pop
Band Link: link
Buy on Amazon.com link

It didn’t take me long to realize that Blackheart Records was connected to Joan Jett. It made a lot of sense, considering that SoCal power-pop trio The Dollyrots play the same type of girl-fronted power-pop that Joan Jett did 25 years ago. The album is crisp, expertly produced, and lead singer has a wonderful rock voice, smooth and serious yet slightly sexy.

Unfortunately, that’s about all the good I can say about this. It sounds nice on the surface, but the lyrics/song topics are the most trivial and ridiculous I’ve ever heard, and sadly it makes the music as a whole suffer. The title track is unnecessarily egotistical, but not in the hip-hop bragging style – it wants to be tongue-in-cheek but comes off as insipid. The content of ‘My Best Friend’s Hot’ is more or less the same; as with just about every song here, everything is written and performed far too literally. Maybe it’s better if you don’t understand English, because some of the lyrics are downright embarassing. The album is catchy but not hooky in the sense that it sounds very familiar yet too much like everything else, thus not making you want to hear it again. However, it does get better as it progresses – the last three or four songs are far better than the first half of the album.

Bottom Line: Decent but uninspired girl-fronted power pop.
Notable Tracks: Brand New Key, Watch Me Go, Cat Calling, Turn You Down
Overall Rating: