It’s hard to be sure if Rakal, Bella and Alice from Dream Wife are a rock’n’roll band or a girl gang with guitars. Either way, their debut album has got some cracking Riot Grrrl-flavoured tunes and a stridently feminist, in-your-face attitude. There is nothing demure about this trio and they really don’t care what your thoughts on that might be.
Like Blondie on rocket fuel or Bikini Kill with better songs, Dream Wife is a set of thrilling tunes of raw guitar from Alice Go and the harpy-like vocals Rakel Mjöll. “Hey Heartbreaker” comes on like turbo-powered glam rock and a kick in the nuts, while “Let’s Make Out” is an avalanche of teenage hormone overdrive. “Do I amuse you? / Do I confuse you?” howls Mjöll on “Act My Age”, while “Spend the Night” makes old Lotharios like Mick Jagger seem positively quaint. For those that may have missed the message, the “I am not my body / I’m somebody” refrain of “Somebody” makes things crystal clear. Dream Wife is brimful of rock’n’roll that has absolutely no room for macho posturing. Signing off with “FUU” and its chant of “I’m gonna fuck you up / Gonna cut you up / Gonna fuck you up”, Dream Wife may have even created a revenge anthem for the #MeToo generation.
It’s a bit of a truism that all significant cultural events will inevitably create some push-back and with Dream Wife, it could be that the sonic reaction to the likes of Harvey Weinstein and the USA’s groper-in-chief has finally started to pick up some momentum. Whether this really is the case or not though, Dream Wife have conjured up a cracking debut album, powered by rage and a fiery righteousness. Just the elements required for a top-notch punk album, in fact.
