Division Of Laura Lee

Das Not Compute (2004)

Scott Heisel

Division Of Laura Lee has always been the ugly stepsister to Epitaph's garage-rock Cinderellas, The Hives and The (International) Noise Conspiracy. DOLL doesn't have the attitude and swagger of the Hives, nor the pedigree and intensity of T(I)NC. Both bands have moved up to the big leagues, whereas DOLL still is trying to make an impact on US soil. With Das Not Compute, hopefully they can make a little progress.

Now the preceeding paragraph is kind of misleading - Division Of Laura Lee, while sharing many of the same influences as their counterparts listed above, is not necessarily a garage rock band per se. The songs on this disc are musically deeper than "Hate To Say I Told You So" or "Up For Sale" - this Swedish quartet makes interesting use of fuzzy bass, reverberant, dirty guitar, eerie keyboard and soulful organ on some of the album's better tracks like "Endless Factories" and "Breathe Breathe" as well as the hidden track after closer "There's A Last Time For Everything." When all of these elements fuse together, you get some surprisingly dancable tunes like "We Are Numbers" as well. It's a pleasant surprise.

Division Of Laura Lee has grown into themselves since 2002's Black City, scrapping some of the failed ambitiousness on that disc for a more solid sophomore effort in Das Not Compute. There's some solid songwriting going on here that makes repeated listens enjoyable. DOLL's fresh perspective on the already flogged-to-death genre of garage rock is worth a listen, if just to get a little Radiohead with your Hives.

MP3s
Does Compute
To The Other Side

Stream four songs here