Premiere: The Dollyrots, ‘First World Anarchist’

Kevin Bronson on February 3rd, 2014

0

Hey, remember pop-punk? Before your various retro movements, the international synthesizer-in-every-pot campaign and the advent of banjo shredding, pop-punk was the hip way to get your ya-ya’s out, whether the music was railing against The Man or rhapsodizing about lost love and alienation. The Dollyrots are still pumping blood into that vein – their fifth album, the fan-funded “Barefoot and Pregnant,” is due Feb. 25 via their own Arrested Youth Records. There’s literal truth in the album’s title: Kelly Ogden and Luis Cabezas were expectant parents when they headed into the studio late last year (a son, River, would eventually join the family). Co-produced by John Fields (Jonas Brothers, Andrew W. K., Har Mar Superstar, Miley Cyrus, Jimmy Eat World and many more) and featuring percussion from Stacy Jones (Letters to Cleo, Veruca Salt and now Cyrus’ musical director), “Barefoot and Pregnant” mixes the political and the personal in the Dollyrots’ characteristic sassy manner. It’s testament to their vision that, years after emerging from a scrappy little L.A. collective called Kiss or Kill and paying their dues for so many years on the Warped Tour, the Dollyrots can still make it sound fresh.

||| Stream: “First World Anarchist”