D’ire, D’abominable, D’abysmal – this is all too D’easy. Bought in 1991, when I was old enough to know better here’s D’Molls. It was cheap, it was glam rock from 1988, I’d sort of heard about them and they looked kinda funny on the back cover = bought it*. Oh dear.
Before today I genuinely don’t think I ever made it through more than three songs in a single go and I have tried two, or three times. Today, for you, I sat down and listened to it all the way through once, so you don’t have to. Now I’m a glam veteran, I own/have owned far more of this stuff than was strictly necessary and it has sound tracked more than I can tell you about whilst maintaining my status as a gentleman. But, for Angus’ sake it was all thirty seven times better than D’Molls.
D’Molls genuinely makes Poison Look What The Cat Dragged In sound like Reign In Blood, it’s rock in name only – everything is a high-pitched, treble-overdosing abomination. On an 11 track LP, there’s only a real discernible guitar solo on one track**, the rest of the guitars just sound like they were played on cheap keyboards. I genuinely can’t distinguish between one plodding tune and the next, the heavily-treated beat of each and every track sounds like an undertaker making your own bespoke coffin as a cruel reminder that you’re minutes closer to your own grave than you once were. Listening to this is like being force-fed 4 kilos of sugar … through every bodily opening, except your mouth. That good.
Now D’Molls do get 1537 bonus points for the band member’s names, step forward Desi Rexx, Billy Dior, Lizzy Valentine and the wildly dubious) S.S Priest. They don’t make ’em like that anymore*^. It reminds me of a game my friend Steve and I used to play at work when we were bored, trying to name the ultimate glam metal group, the best we came up with was:
- Screech Benson – Vocals
- Dizzy Banger – Drums
- Fido – Bass
- Lionel ‘Wang bar’ Riichardz – Guitar
The D’molls were clearly better at it than Steve and I. Click to marvel at them properly.
Future generations will undoubtedly put this band in their full historical perspective and mock fools like me who failed to identify the D’Molls as a game-changing harbinger of all future culture, but until then we can just amuse ourselves with their lyrics. I know it’s arbitrary and unfair, but hey, welcome to my world. Some personal favourites are:
Mayor’s daughter, shouldn’t oughta (All I Want)
Winners of the human race’ll / Lose a little social grace / Just as well, ’cause what the hell’s / An elevator? (777 (not a Danzig cover)
Umm, it’s a device to take you between floors in a building?
With one too many her lights turn green / She’ll hand you the keys to her pink machine (Rally Baby)
Dudes, AC/DC would have knocked that double entendre back for lack of subtlety!
And I’m going to stop right there. Although D’Molls do something I find a little odd in their usual, vastly long credits, they split them between ‘Dolls’ and ‘Dudes’, I’ve never ever seen a band do that before, carry out some kind of strange gender apartheid. Bizarre. If I was Ahmet Ertegun I really wouldn’t have allowed them to include my name in the thanks bit for, and I quote, ‘D’Atlantic Family’.
As I have been a little bit less than gushing this time out, I shall nail up the usual 1537 disclaimer right here, which is D’Molls is a far, far better LP than any I have ever released and I appreciate smart-arsed blogging is no substitute for having been there and done it.
But, still.
569 Down.
*the same day I rather more successfully bought Four Horsemen, the Atom Seed and that other glam metal classic Neil Young Freedom.
**on ‘All Night Long’, and its quite good – but admitting that spoils my argument, so Shhhh!.
*^not since the 1991 Taste Act was passed into federal law.
Makes Look What The Cat Dragged In look like Reign In Blood?
I… I have to go wash out my eyes…
Hit Spotify … go on, dare ya!
Highly unlikely. 😉
Glam coward!
I see former Fleetwood Mac singer Becka Bramlett’s name in the thanks!
2 names that jump out at me are Valerie Van Halen(I didn’t think she went by that handle), and Jack Bauer. I assume this was pre 24. Maybe some radio execs hired Jack to kill the band, but he spared them.
You just touched on a very dangerous conspiracy theory. You thought Joey Tempest was bad? You’ll see.
Shhhh. They’re watching, always watching.
I almost missed Peter Criss
I heard to theories.
1)Screech Benson was on Saved by the Bell
2)The “real” Screech Benson was liquefied by Jack Bauer, bottled and sold in Newfoundland, Canada.
Stop it ! You’re making me laugh at work, that’s strictly not allowed between the hours of 9 – 5.
Perhaps a top 10 list of the worst albums with the name Van Halen on them. Where do you think this will rank?
Just before the last Hagar one!
You want conspiracy. Glenn Miller’s plane did not crash. He never wanted to do Big Band Music, so this album was actually 45 years in the making. He always wanted to lead a Glam Rock band, and he resurfaced here all these years later to create his “masterpiece”.
Also D.B. Cooper(listed as Don)financed the album with the money he stole since no record companies would touch this with a 10 foot pole. Thousands of phony Atlantic labels were made up, just in case, but only a few dozen were actually needed(mostly for the bands family members). If you scratch your label you can see it is actually liquid paper and red marker. Just don’t sniff it though. Just like in “Hungry Like The Wolf”, it smells like it sounds.
Totally D’feasible D’ude!
I’m going out on a limb here and say that 100 or so of the people on that list do hair and makeup.
And the remaining 300 do liposuction and bespoke spandex trousers. Oh and there’s Peter Criss.
And Peter Criss!
This is fitting for the title. It also is how I feel when I shell out good money for an album such as this……https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO37Ql91qqM
Haha.
That video becomes quite hypnotic, after a while…
Yowzer! This sounds pretty bad … (playing it down somewhat). And on Atlantic? Man, labels really did throw money at anything didn’t they?
… thanks for buying and listening to this one.
I can lend you mine if you like?
No, no, too kind … I would, of course, love that, but what would happen if you got up in the middle of the night for your D’Molls hit and realised that you’d loaned it out? I couldn’t put you through that.
Sparky Gilderoy – Vocals, Mic stand and Tambourine
Ric Slider – Guitars
Fuzz – Basses
Poncho Skeeter – Drumses
Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you… Flaming Ashes
Wow, the unholy hair metal/cricket fusion, not been tried before but it might just work!
I kinda like those lyrics to ‘Rally Machine.’
Yup, they’re pretty deep.
You know, I…..
Never mind. I think we’ve all learned a great lesson here. Now let’s never talk of this again, shall we?
We just need to make sure future generations are safe from this.
We must send killer androids back in time and possibly keep us safe from this as well. It’s really mankind’s only hope.
Wow, I’m buying the movie rights!
“Ah yoo Desi Rexx?”, spoken in thick Austrian accent.
Man, I’d definitely pay to see that.
Billy Dior and C.C. Deville in Screamin’ Mimi’s, prior to Poison and D’Molls.
Yup, they were also the Chicago Molls briefly too.
This is like WW2, we need to remember so it never happens again to future generations.
I heard they play this in Guantanamo Bay as a form of torture even though it is not allowed in the Geneva convention
Those poor bastards!
That’s a really cool rocky verso of it too.
We appreciate your suffering, so we don’t have to.
My band would be Willi Wanker & the Chocolate Highway Patrol
Willi Wanker-Vocals
“Big” Harry Johnson-Bass
Ferris Stooler- Rhythm Guitar
Fester the Molester-Lead Guitar
Forrest Hump-Drums
The first album will be 4 KG Sugar Enema and we will go on tour opening for Steel Panther.
Thank you, it’s my mission.
Love your band dude, I can see you getting loads of bookings on the high school prom circuit with that one!
We wanted to do that, but since we are on tour with Steel Panther and since they are not allowed 1000m from the nearest school yard, it wasn’t going to work.
The MEAT Magazine review was pretty simple: “D’worst”.
No! They stole my idea, many years before I even had it! Bastards!!
Well I bought this as well and it got filed away quick along with Britney Fox! These two albums I got hosed on. I love the comparison of Poison sounding like Slayer! Hahahaha ….
Great read dude on a real bad album and kudos to you for seeing it through! Hopefully your family didn’t up and leave …or did they kick u out!
Thank you!
Britny Fox weren’t good but they were at least 19 times better than this!
Family have given me one last chance.