Skip to content
Reviews

Diamond Rings, ‘Special Affections’ (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.