Danity Kane reincarnation seeks break from past, falls flat

Remember Danity Kane? It's back...in a way. Dumblonde, a duo comprised of former Danity Kane members Shannon Bex and Aubrey O’Day, released its debut, self-titled album this Friday.

The original female pop group dissolved in 2009 after its members had a falling out. Subsequent reconciliations brought Danity Kane back together, but without the approval of producer Sean "Diddy" Combs. Defiant, the pop group released its third studio album, “DK3” (2014), only to break up again after disagreements in the recording studio; a physical altercation led group member Dawn Richard to leave Danity Kane in 2014. Another member, Aundrea Fimbres, also left, but to start a family. The remaining duo then branded themselves Dumblonde, an electronic dance-pop group.

Dumblonde’s sound is a distant variation on the Danity Kane sonic spectrum, self-consciously straddling cliché pop and an edgy electronic style. It sort of sounds like a pop producer decided to experiment with genre fusions by throwing darts at a board. Nothing on “Dumblonde” comes close to the intoxicating mega-pop hit “Damaged” off of Danity Kane’s “Welcome to the Dollhouse” (2008), which would hardly matter if the album didn’t sound like it was constantly trying to aspire to that height of musical trendiness.

The opening song “White Lightning” is filled with the kind of angsty female vocals that one would expect from a club banger like Zedd or Avicii; the lyricism and sound would be more forgivable if it were a featured track rather than an original work. The song is rife with trite phrases, played out hooks and what now feels like an obligatory trap section running rampant across the track. Reading the lyrics is like reading a word association assignment written by a third grader for the SAT word of the day. By the end of the four-minute track, listeners will feel like they've heard the same song repeat itself at least three times over.

Fortunately, the following track, “Eyes on the Horizon,” takes a very different approach, swinging more toward R&B. Once again, however, the lyrics get in the way of actually enjoying the song. There is hardly a coherent sentence wrapped up in the bombardment of beats -- it seems like Dumblonde is singing just to make noise.

“Love Blind" is one lyrical bright spot in this otherwise disturbingly vapid album. “Are we steady? / For the ride / Going a hundred miles won’t matter / While staring at me love blind / For the hell of it / For the life / For a moment of truth / I dare you to fall deep in love,” Bex sings. Sadly, this is just one of two verses in this song -- the other verse being far poorer in quality. The rest of the track is also mind numbingly repetitive, and not in a good way.

“Dreamsicle” is perhaps the truest to Bex and O’Day’s roots, with vocal layers added to make harmonies beyond Dumblonde’s capacity as a two-member group. Number nine on the album, this track is the definition of "too little, too late," as most listeners will probably have shut this album off long before reaching it.

The final track is the most hopeful track on “Dumblonde,” combining vocal harmonies and a military tattoo to make a solid power-up track that should leave listeners pumped up for whatever task lies ahead of them. “Carry On” is measured, avoiding overly bombastic tropes in favor of a steady, relaxed and driving tone. At just under three minutes long, the song feels short, but perhaps that is a good thing. Based on the rest of the album, who knows what could have gone wrong with any extra time allotted?

There is not a lot to recommend on “Dumblonde.” Its members’ attempts to diversify their material beyond their pop princess background is respectable, but ultimately unsuccessful, and where they shine most is where they deviate least from their past work. The result is a pile of unlovable songs that contains just snippets of enjoyable music. Maybe this album is just showing the group’s growing (or rather shrinking) pains, but the next album, if there is a next album, needs to find its sound a lot sooner than the ninth track.