''Love and Affection for Stupid Little Bitches'' is the third
studio album by Canadian
noise pop
Noise pop is a subgenre of alternative and indie rock that developed in the mid-1980s in the United Kingdom and United States. It is defined by its mixture of dissonant noise or feedback with the songcraft more often found in pop music. Shoega ...
duo
Black Dresses
Black Dresses are a Canadian noise pop duo consisting of Ada Rook and Devi McCallion. Their debut album, '' Wasteisolation'', was released independently in 2018. The duo released three additional albums, ''Thank You'' (2019), '' Love and Affecti ...
. Released on August 1, 2019, the album was their third in two years following ''
Wasteisolation'' (2018) and ''Thank You'' (2019).
Style and themes
Musically, the album contains elements of
noise
Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference aris ...
,
pop,
industrial,
industrial metal,
experimental music, and internet genres such as
chillwave
Chillwave (originally considered synonymous with glo-fi and hypnagogic pop) is a music microgenre that emerged in the late 2000s. It loosely emulates 1980s electropop while engaging with notions of memory and nostalgia. Common features inclu ...
and
vaporwave
Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, visual art style, and Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, elevator, R&B, and lounge music fro ...
.
The vocals on the album vary between
screaming and sing-rapping.
It explores themes such as finding friendship through times of hardship and pain, resilience and hope,
identity,
depression, and
body horror
Body horror or biological horror is a subgenre of horror that intentionally showcases grotesque or psychologically disturbing violations of the human body. These violations may manifest through aberrant sex, mutations, mutilation, zombification, ...
.
Reception
James Rettig of ''
Stereogum'' felt that the album was more melodic than previous Black Dresses albums, and that the duo's production skills had improved "allowing more space and breathing room for some truly gorgeous moments to unfold." He concluded "It’s another stellar entry in a discography that shows no signs of slowing down."
In a positive review for
''Pitchfork'', Colin Joyce rated the album 7.7 out of 10, feeling that whilst the album was as heavy as previous albums, it was more positive in tone and felt "uplifting" and "triumphant".
Joyce went on to reiterate his praise for the positivity of the album for ''
Noisey''
's "The 22 Best Albums You May Have Missed in 2019", calling the album "a testament to the power of the music
lack Dressesmake together".
Andrew Sacher, writing for ''
BrooklynVegan'', described the album as Black Dresses' most accessible so far, but felt that it still retained its experimentalism, calling it "genuinely fresh and genuinely confrontational in an era where it often feels like you've heard it all."
Jordan Darville, writing for ''
The Fader
''The Fader'' (stylized as ''FADER'') is a magazine based in New York City that was launched in 1999 by Rob Stone and Jon Cohen. The magazine covers music, style and culture. It was the first print publication to be released on iTunes.
It is o ...
'', praised the themes on the album and said that it showed "a capacity for merging noise and pop not heard since
Nine Inch Nails."
Accolades
Track listing
References
{{Reflist
2019 albums
Transgender-related music
Black Dresses albums