Consider Dee Dee and Brandon Welchez the first couple of garage rock macabre. Welchez's band, Crocodiles, specialize in nuggets of scrappy, buzzsaw distortion that carry song titles like "I Wanna Kill", "Summer of Hate", and "Bubblegum Trash". Meanwhile, Dee Dee's Dum Dum Girls have spent the past couple of years perfecting-- their particular brand of lapsed-Catholic cool. So when the husband and wife duo announced that they were starting a band together and calling it Haunted Hearts, you could guess without hearing a note that this wasn't exactly going to be the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.
But while "Something That Feels Bad Is Something That Feels Good" has some of the expected elements (echoey, JAMC-esque guitars, a press photo of Dee Dee dressed as a fabulously mod nun), the song's more of a crushstruck gaze than a sneer. "I kissed heaven on your lips," Welchez sings (with Penny providing the backing vocal), before the song explodes into a resonant solo that's more Automatic than Psychocandy. It's not a curveball for either artist, true-- but, for a couple who've been exchanging dedications back and forth their respective records like notes passed in class (Crocodiles' "No Black Clouds for Dee Dee", Dum Dum Girls' "Take Good Care of My Baby") there's something sweetly satisfying about finally hearing the music they make when they're together.