Looking at them, you would not think Deap Vally – a primal two-girl guitar'n'drums duo from LA – met in a crochet class. Deap Vally sound like trouble, dress like perdition and their promotional materials aren't shy of suggesting to the gullible that a little girl-on-girl action might take place during studio downtime.
Watching her hit things with the ferocity of a cavewoman, red hair flying, you don't really picture drummer Julie Edwards running a shop in LA called The Little Knittery, or bonding over hooks with singing guitarist Lindsey Troy … at a crochet clinic. That Edwards and Troy mix needlecraft with distortion remains one of this superlative duo's plus points; subverting expectations from the off. They rock, they knit. Deal with it.
There are many reasons not to rate Deap Vally's debut, the almost indecently to-the-point Sistrionix. The biggest barrier is the lack of originality in their drums'n'guitar set-up and blues rock sound. Both have been done, better, before by the White Stripes. It is unfortunate that Troy's most direct peer is virtuoso Jack White, one of the definitive guitarists of a generation. The Black Keys don't sound remotely stripped-down any more, but they too once cleaved to this ascetic no-bass sound.
It's worth not getting too absorbed by the business of dues-paying here, however, or risk missing out on the fun. Deap Vally do one thing – well, two, really – very well. Like outrageously attired alchemists, they distil rock'n'roll down to its barest essences – thud, snarl, wooh! – and turn it into something precious again.
This is not an "ironic", "fun", "rock" record pivoting on the theoretical novelty value of its creators (although if all the people who bought the first Darkness album 10 years ago bought Sistrionix, the band would probably be quite OK with that). It is a thoroughly unironic, seriously fun, rock record, in which seizing the day (well, the night), settling scores and the importance of making one's own money are explored in detail, with leering electric guitar and crashing kit. There is no need for a string section.
Deap Vally's first single – the awesome Gonna Make My Own Money – pretty much established their feminist credentials. More throwdowns to mankind follow, most obviously Creeplife's two-speed take-down of unpleasant men. Then there's the vituperative Lies. "I thought we agreed," sneers Troy to a faithless type, "you wouldn't have the need/ To spread your seed/ But it's a fact/ You broke your contract/ You're gonna pay tenfold/ You're gonna be alone when you grow old…"
And yet, amid all this Joan Jett attitude, a little hippy sentiment peeks out. Album opener End of the World is a plea for everyone to be a little nicer to each other, delivered with high camp grandstanding by Troy and guitar smears soaked in napalm.
By the time the stoner rock album closer rolls round, we've had a desolate electric blues (Your Love) and Raw Material, in which Deap Vally bridle at the idea that female creatives are untutored, instinctual and somehow "raw". (Oh to be a fly on the wall at the Deap Vally/Savages summit!)
It all ends with a moving snippet in which Deap Vally remind us – a cappella except for a tambourine – that constancy is important and that old people were young once. They may be direct, but Deap Vally are certainly not as straightforward as they might appear.
