Dakota

Word on the New Dresden Dolls Album
From Roadrunner Records--

A giant groundswell of interest - and a fan base that grows exponentially as the band [the Dresden Dolls] tours - is setting the stage for an explosive response when Yes, Virginia, the band's newest collection of songs, is turned loose on an eager public this spring.

Produced by Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie (Radiohead, The Pixies, Hole) and recorded over several weeks at Allaire Studios (a converted turn-of-the-century mansion in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York), Yes, Virginia is a rich tapestry that showcases the band's road-sharpened musical chemistry and digs deep into recesses of the human heart usually considered taboo. Songs like "Sex Changes" and "Dirty Business" blast listeners with earsplitting Marshall Stack Power and explore the pathology of identity crisis. Torch cousins "First Orgasm" and "Me & The Minibar" finds Palmer back alone at her piano, delicately unfolding her pained confessions. Viglione solidifies his place in the Drummer Pantheon as he delivers mind-boggling fills and flourishes on fast-and-furious tunes "Modern Moonlight" and "Necessary Evil." On "Mrs. O," a slightly cryptic mid-tempo ballad about the re-writing of history, Palmer takes on the dangerous character of a holocaust-denying old woman with the words "There's No Hitler and No Holocaust/No Winter and No Santa Claus/And Yes, Virginia, All Because/The Truth Won't Save You Now..." This line, and the title of the record itself, is a reference to the now-famous 1897 New York Sun letter to the editor in which 8-year old Virginia O'Hanlon questions the existence of Santa Claus. Palmer's ambiguous reaches at answering life's impossible questions whether about identity, loneliness or technology - may echo dark, but underneath lies a timid optimism and a childlike wonder.

The Dolls have not lost their sense of the absurd, however, and the blacker-than-black-humor on "Mandy Goes To Med School" finds Palmer imagining a scenario in which she and drummer/cohort Viglione play a lighthearted and childish game of let's-pretend-we're-back-alley-abortionists. The album's final track, the pastoral and positive first single "Sing," brings it all home as Palmer boldly announces, "Life is no Cabaret/We're inviting you anyway," underlining The Dolls' real-life attempt to invite everyone into their party while maintaining the individuality that has enabled them to be a fixture rather than a fad.

Inclusion is an art form that The Dresden Dolls have perfected. The artwork for Yes, Virginia was culled from over 600 submissions from fans, painters and designers from around the globe. Each panel of the booklet includes original images directly inspired by the songs. Featured is up-and-coming New York painter Barnaby Whitfield, who plays Warhol to the Dolls' Velvet Underground, creating beautifully disturbing scenes within the CD booklet reminiscent of post-WWI German Expressionists Otto Dix and Christian Schad.