Nobody's Daughter

After 12-years, Hole returns with an 11-song collection produced by Michael Beinhorn (Soundgarden, Ozzy, Chili Peppers). Despite the heaviness in Beinhorn and Hole’s respective pasts, most of the tracks here are singer-songwriterly, where acoustics provide the backbone. This provides an intimate vibe to the proceedings. The album’s other ingredient is Hole’s leader Courtney Love. Though her voice has been ravaged by abuse and age, Love uses it to her advantage.

The album’s first single, “Skinny Little Bitch,” is as taunting as its title. The punk-infused rocker feels like an Iggy Pop b-side. Raw and venomous, Love sadistically lambastes a suitor, “You stagger here on broken glass/ So I could kick your scrawny ass/ All the drugs and all the burns/ What a nasty piece of work.”

Anchored by strummed acoustic guitars with electric guitar blasts, “Honey” is well crafted, and Love’s bed-of-nails vocals are particularly expressive.

“Letter to God” feels like an open diary left on the kitchen table. An electric guitar plays a somber arpeggio as Love sings, “I never wanted to be the person you see/ Can you tell me who I am.” The electric leads with a line that reverberates like tear drops.

The album closes with the evocative, all-acoustic “Never Go Hungry,” on which Love’s folksy sentiments provide a poignant bookend to the collection. “It's a long way back/ From where I've fallen down/ It's a very hard fall/ It's a very cruel town… Oh I don’t care what it takes my friend/ I will never go hungry, go hungry again.”

• Album: Nobody’s Daughter (2010)
• Artist: Hole
• Label: Mercury Records
• Songs: (1) Nobody's Daughter (2) Skinny Little Bitch (3) Honey (4) Pacific Coast Highway (5) Samantha (6) Someone Else's Bed (7) For Once In Your Life (8) Letter To God (9) Loser Dust (10) How Dirty Girls Get Clean (11) Never Go Hungry