The real shock is not that the New York Dolls reformed for Meltdown at Morrissey’s behest. Nor is it that, as a result, there’s now a third Dolls album proper, over 30 years after the original line-up’s inglorious implosion. No, the real shock is that the thing is such an unqualified triumph.
Of course it isn’t the Dolls as we knew ’em. Jerry Nolan, Johnny Thunders and Arthur Kane have departed for the great Mercer Arts Center in the sky, and only the most starry-eyed among us would approach this album expecting the diseased raunch and spasmic thrust of ‘Trash’ or ‘Personality Crisis’ or ‘Mystery Girls’.
No matter. David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain have done a remarkable but entirely natural thing. They’ve recruited some new bloods (a handy little band that includes, of all people, former Hanoi Rocks bassist Sam Yaffa), reconnected with original producer Jack Douglas, and recorded a faithful approximation of what the Dolls would’ve sounded like had they stayed alive, stayed together and grown old with grace.
Mind you, a good half of this record is still the work of a dirty little rhythm ‘n’ blues band. Tunes like ‘Fishnets & Cigarettes’ and ‘Gotta Get Away From Tommy’ should by rights sound like sad parodies of the sleaze-rock glory days; instead they’re yobby, gobby, bawdy and ballsy rave-ups. Even a throw-away piece of jet-trash like ‘Dance Like A Monkey’ finds Johansen riffing on some wonderfully daft Darwinian and Creationism routines.
But the real revelation is the stuff that sounds all grown-up: the misty-eyed girl-group melodies and Spectorish big beat of ‘Plenty Of Music’; the grizzled melancholia of ‘Maimed Happiness’ and ‘I Ain’t Got Nothin’’; the storming, Springsteeny ‘Dancing On The Lip Of A Volcano’, a polysyllabic eco-anthem that features a cameo from Michael Stipe (I’m not making this up). Johansen’s voice, weathered by years of Buster Poindexter cha-chas and Harry Smiths blues, is an exquisitely ragged and worn instrument. He always sounded like an old man trapped in a skinny boy’s body, but now he’s matured into a grouchy and charismatic vocalist – you can’t take your ears off the guy.
One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This is a proud, unbowed and beautifully dignified return to the fray. I’m still pinching myself.