Dresden Dolls' Amanda Palmer "Killed"

Mind those sensationalist headlines, kids, you just might get duped!

By Blurt Staff

Amanda Palmer, vocalist, keyboardist and songwriter for her band The Dresden Dolls is set to drop her first solo album on Sept. 16 via Roadrunner. Here’s the scoop from the label. Hey, they write this stuff better than we do, so why rewrite perfectly good promotional hype!

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Whether participating in theater projects both in America and abroad, or simply helping to run the fan-generated merch company the Dolls started called Post-War Trade, Amanda Palmer is a woman whose artistic endeavors have no boundaries.  This September, these undertakings come together with the release of Amanda's incredible solo debut, entitled Who Killed Amanda Palmer, on Roadrunner Records.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer began as a minimal affair:  with songs amassing that did not seem to require drums, Amanda decided to record a solo album for piano and voice, made in her bedroom, finished in a week.   And then, as if the universe turned to her and said, "not so fast…," Amanda happened to meet Ben Folds in Australia, bonded over mutual loves and suddenly, the record was moved out of the bedroom and into Folds' Nashville-based, piano-filled recording studio.  With Ben Folds acting as producer, the songs on Who Killed Amanda Palmer (a name initially meant as a Twin Peaks reference that has since come to take on new meanings for Amanda), began to come alive, resulting in what is some of the best recorded work of her multi-faceted career.

Mixing the magical and the macabre, the mundane and the sentimental, Who Killed Amanda Palmer is a musical tour de force, the culmination of nearly ten years' worth of songwriting.  Some songs on the album pop and twist with the intensity of their own subject matter – Amanda has never been one to shy away from the taboo – while others are soft and intimate, revealing sides of Amanda not usually seen within her work in The Dresden Dolls.  Featuring guest turns from the likes of The Dead Kennedys' East Bay Ray (on "Guitar Hero"), St. Vincent's Annie Clark (on a warped take on Carousel's "What's the Use of Wondrin"), cellist Zoe Keating, and string arrangements by master composer Paul Buckmaster, Who Killed Amanda Palmer gives Amanda's incredible compositions new color via expansive instrumentation and glorious arrangements. 

Opener "Astronaut" starts the album with a divine blast of driving strings, cymbal crashes and the piano pounding for which Amanda is known, while "Runs in the Family," one of the oldest of the songs on the album, runs wild out of the speakers, Amanda's vocals so passionate she seems barely unable to catch her breath.  First single "Leeds United," recorded in Scotland on a whim, is a pop masterpiece, Amanda's voice raspy and raw against the marching band horn stabs of the chorus.  "Strength Through Music," written in response to the Columbine shootings and recorded around the time of the Virginia Tech shootings, is anchored by two moving piano chords and a palpable sense of loneliness, while the sinister organ of "Guitar Hero" takes on video game fanaticism, machismo and alienation with a sarcastic  sneer.  Closing track "Another Year" finishes the album with a string-filled melody and Amanda's voice sounding more worn and lost than ever before as she details the passing of time and her own place in the world.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer features liner notes written by celebrated graphic novelist Neil Gaiman, with whom Amanda will be collaborating on a photography book in tandem with the album's release.    Amanda will be embarking on a tour in support of the album this fall; in the meantime, she is playing a once-in-a-lifetime show with The Boston Pops Orchestra in her hometown of Boston tonight, June 20^th, at Symphony Hall.

Track Listing:

1.       Astronaut

2.      Runs in the Family

3.      Ampersand

4.      Leeds United

5.      Blake Says

6.      Strength Through Music

7.      Guitar Hero

8.      Have to Drive

9.      What's the Use of Wondrin

10.  Melissa Mahoney

11.   The Point of It All

12.   Another Year

[Photo Credit: Chris Crisman]