By Carl Begai
Call it a case of “You say tomato and I say tomahto.” Ottawa-based Doll, who officially grabbed the public eye in 2009 with their debut album Inside The Dollhouse, remain steadfast in stamping themselves as a modern day grunge-flavoured act, but my finely-honed musical sensibilities protest. It must be a generational thing, because going into the band’s new album, The Ragdoll Diaries, there’s very little that conjures up visions of the unkempt angst-clenched Vedder / Staley / Cobain-worshipping legions of the ‘90s. Maybe it’s the street-level grit under the band’s proverbial fingernails, but Doll exhibit a healthy aggression delivered with a refreshing punk attitude built for a live audience. For those that have been following the band since their debut, The Ragdoll Diaries has been a long time in coming, and it was a wait that wasn’t made easier with the early 2011 release of three songs – online and for free – as a tease. Vocalist/guitarist Christina Abraham Kasper makes no apologies, calling the move to do so a necessary one.
Christina: “We started recording this album over a year ago, in August 2010. We did the first album in two weeks, but for this one we really took our time. We went into the studio a few times a week and worked on songs here and there. We made them perfect; if there was something bugging us about one song we had the time to fix it. The three songs that we put out, we just wanted to get a buzz going and let people know that we were still around and working hard on a new album. I think some people were a bit surprised that we were working on new songs, so they were excited to hear it. We were playing a lot of new material at our live shows, too, so that’s helped get the buzz going as well.” Continue reading DOLL – Rags And Riches