REVIEWSDiamond Rings, ‘Special Affections’

8

• SPIN Rating:8 of 10

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Release Date: June 21, 2011
Label: astralwerks

Late last decade, John O'Regan fronted brash Toronto rockers the D'Urbervilles, but after being hospitalized with Crohn's disease, the singer reinvented himself as synth-popper Diamond Rings. The result of this self-therapy is a classic post-traumatic-stress album that masks its who-am-I-now? introspection with garish hooks and blunt beats. Pitting his manly baritone against squishy feminine keys in the sexually ambiguous '80s tradition, O'Regan gives his transformation a thrilling edge, not least because there's real danger involved. He may never be the man he once was, and his fabulously imagined future remains uncertain.