Dirty Children – Shut Off The World

Dirty Children – Shut Off The World / 2005 Noizyninja Productions / 12 Tracks / http://www.dirtychildrenmusic.com / Reviewed 06 June 2005

Dirty Children play a brand of rock that has a little more than a passing nod to the new-wave of rock that has been trumped by bands like Jet, The Strokes, and The White Stripes. The female vocals do not really delineate the band’s sound from any of those previously mentioned acts, as Nadia does not boldly show the fact that eir is a female throughout tracks like “Insecurity”. The music during “Insecurity” uses a guitar more commonly found in some of the nu-metal (Linkin Park, Seether) than the side of music that was present during “I Did It”. The thing that really comes into notice during “Shut Off The World” has to be the fairly tepid guitar lines that are abound during the disc.

Tracks like their cover of Sheila E’s “Glamorous Life” only really stands out from mediocrity due to Nadia’s soulful singing and the ever-present bass lines, not due in any way to the very repetitive guitar lines that make the track. Moving away from the rock sound that was so present on the first section of the disc, the heavy “Gravity” is a ploy by Dirty Children to increase their fanbase to adult contemporary and pop fans. The track itself stands and is supported again by Nadia’s voice, but the guitar work laid down by Jay really stands above the rest of the material up to that point. The inclusion of keys during “Scientist” really changes what one can expect from Dirty Children and the track really does much to break the tedium that had been growing in once sense or another since the beginning of the disc.

The crunchy sound of “Can’t Get Clean” seems to put Nadia in a mixture of Amy from Evanescence and Avril Lavigne (in all the positive senses that one can come up with concerning those two individuals). Oddly enough, it is Nadia’s ability to even call forth Candlemass as a conceivable influence that really shows to listeners that there is a reason to pick up this CD. The music put forth ebbs and flows, very indecisive in the path it wishes to go throughout the entirety of the CD but the one thing that maintains constancy is the quality of Nadia’s vocals. This makes Dirty Children an upgrade of the Letters To Cleo / Bif Naked sound of the mid to late nineties, and should Jay step up in a larger way to the instrumental necessities of the next album, chances are that Dirty Children would be on their way to stardom.

Top Tracks: God Got In The Way, Gravity

Rating: 4.9/10