Carl Begai

By Carl Begai

Tell a metalhead who cut his or her teeth in the ‘70s and ‘80s that a new grunge-influenced band is making some serious noise and watch them reach for the earplugs. A hair-trigger reaction for anyone that watched helplessly as metal took a pounding with the scene-altering rise of Nirvana, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam in the early ‘90s. Thus, news of an Ottawa-based alternative rock / grunge act by the name of Doll gaining momentum in the press and on the touring circuit was met by yours truly with a “So what?” reaction. Curiosity killed the preconceived notions, however, as a surprisingly painless listen to songs available online revealed grunge is only a very small part of the Doll sound. If anything its a disservice to use the term. Doll’s sound is in fact a gritty mix of indie rock, punk and metal, with only a twist of grunge here and there. Call it mayhem played at street level guaranteed to appeal to the flannel-wearing angst-happy holdovers and beer swilling rivet-heads alike. A pleasant surprise in spite of what some folks are calling it.

“It’s funny because it started off that way,” says vocalist / guitarist Christina Kasper of the self-inflicted grunge tag, “but everyone in the band likes heavier stuff and we have a lot of different influences. Over time Doll became more of a harder alternative rock band. We’re not a metal band, we’re not a punk band, and we’re not a straight up rock band, so it’s kind of good for us because we can be opening up for Genitorturers one week, the Spinerettes the next week, and Lacuna Coil the week after that. We’re able to touch a lot of these different genres at the same time, which is pretty cool.” (continue reading…)