Photo Credit: Natalie Mecaughey
Today, (10/22), Philadelphia folk-rock band Dirty Dollhouse released their highly anticipated new album, The End. The long-awaited album follows the EP Queen Coyote (2020). The End is confident, expansive, and daring, even when the lyrics take us through an emotional (and literal) apocalypse. With most of the upcoming album’s material written in quarantine, the collection of songs are often darkly diaristic, yet somehow retain Mitchell’s signature humor and relatability.
These themes are best explored on the album’s focus track “Everything’s Fine,” where the narrator wrestles with dark thoughts and a loneliness born long before isolation. Chelsea Mitchell of the band expands, “It’s about a house that has suddenly become a prison, and seeing the cracks and peeling wallpaper for the first time.”
The release follows singles “Birthday” – which garnered support from hometown NPR affiliate station WXPN on the WXPN Local Show and was featured as the local pick of the day on WXPN Middays – and the dreamy, alt-country-tinged track, “For Carolina.” The End is primed to rectify lost time from the pandemic and aims to reintroduce Dirty Dollhouse to the world.
Listen / Share: The End
Originally conceived as a female vocal trio, Dirty Dollhouse’s evolution and growth over the last decade cannot be overstated. In the midst of the pandemic, navigating isolation, and an unforeseen performing hiatus, principal songwriter and lead singer Chelsea Mitchell kept mining her life for a new collection of deeply personal songs. There was no shortage of material as the past four years have been a whirlwind for Mitchell, including her purchase of the local record shopwhere she grew up and separating from her spouse and musical collaborator in 2022. Even older wounds, such as the sudden passing of her beloved father in 2013, come creeping back into lyrics like phantom pain.
Where the band’s debut EP 25 Shades (2015) eschewed complex production in favor of simple harmony and minimalism, Vinyl Child (2017) embraced big polished pop and a wide-ranging, genre-bending sound. 2020’s indie-rocker EP Queen Coyote took the best parts of Vinyl Childand perfected them so that the new album The End could shine.
Even as heartbreak weaves through the band’s new album, Mitchell always finds her way back to the brightside. In reality, whatever changes and challenges the years have brought, the core of Dirty Dollhouse has only gotten stronger through it all: Josh Machiz laying a sure-footed foundation on bass and Eric Lawry playing drums and harmonizing with Mitchell. More recently, The End engineer and co-producer Pete Hall has been taking his intimate knowledge of the new project and adding his lead guitar prowess to live performances. The band’s stage presence feels whole, lived-in, and emits the kind of energy that only old friends making music together can create. Nowhere is this connection more evident than in their new recordings, which put each member’s talent and dedication on full display. The End stands to make good on the promise of Queen Coyote and turn Dirty Dollhouse into a household name.
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