The New York Dolls are still an adventurous, deeply-schooled, challenging, fun-loving rock band. I've been listening to their new album, Dancing Backward in High Heels, non-stop for a couple of days now with much delight. I don't know how recording it in Newcastle brought them back to the fifties/early-sixties girl-group sound, one of the musical veins that they tapped in the early seventies (thus starting the camp approach that was an integral part of punk), but it did. It's an updated version of the sound, too, and man, does it ever sound hip in 2011. By the way, there was a lot of turnover in the group's personnel from the last album to this one - only the drummer, Brian Delaney and the two original members, David Johansen and Syl Sylvain, are back from the squad that produced One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (2006) and Cause I Sez So (2009), and having seen the band in that configuration, I was sorry to hear that the bassist, Sami Yaffa and the guitarist, Steve Conte had gone, because they both made terrific contributions. But that's rock and roll, I guess. In any event, this new release is a very interesting development of the band's sound, and maybe the personnel changes allowed that to happen to some degree. Here's the brilliant second track, "Streetcake" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPz_baKEe3U&playnext=1&list=PLAD8182C5ECFA20AE).