Live Video: Deep Sea Diver

The past half-decade has seen Jessica Dobson powering through an alt-rock dream career: touring with and joining The Shins, touring with Beck, Spoon, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and starting local cult favorite Deep Sea Diver with her husband Peter Mansen on drums. The first DSD release was the '09 EP, New Caves, and seven years and two additional band members later, we find ourselves at Secrets. Reviews of the new LP almost invariably end up pigeonholing Dobson as a standout success in a long line of female rockers performing what is seen as a female-specific brand of rock that is characterized by emotional, insightful, intellectual lyrical content with slower, patient instrumentation, often using St. Vincent's Annie Clark as the standard. But in honor of this being Women's History Month, let's call Secrets what it is: it's not just great female rock, it's great rock. Taking up the mantle of melancholy-coated introspective rock laid down by some of the higher profile names Dobson has worked beside, Deep Sea Diver swims right in the sweet spot between the synth-based electronic music that has become standard fare with the snare-smacking rock that defines the bands she has called peers in her impressive career thus far. Particularly, the title track and the slow-boiling "Green Light", which proudly displays Dobson's crooning vocal range, shine in this altogether stellar performance.