Do You Wonder About Me?

If the female lead in a Nickelodeon teen sitcom grew to her early to mid-twenties, moved to a hip section of New York, and starting writing songs about dating and living in the Big City, she might sound something like Alex Luciano, the lead singer and guitarist with Diet Cig. Thats not an insult. Luciano has a knack for sounding bright, bouncy, and upbeat while shes justifiably pissed off at the men in her life, and shes confident and capable even as shes pondering self-doubt and thinking out loud about why stuff goes wrong in her life. Carly Shea and/or Tori Vega probably wouldnt have a band as good as Diet Cig, though. Diet Cigs second full-length effort, 2020s Do You Wonder About Me?, is an engaging bit of indie pop just on the border of pop-punk thats abundantly catchy and fun to listen to despite the emotional ups and downs of Luciano and her characters. Noah Bowman, Diet Cigs drummer and Lucianos songwriting partner, puts enough gravity behind the performances that they genuinely rock, so even the gritty Broken Body and Flash Flood have a pogo-friendly energy, while the introspection of Worth the Wait is relatable without sinking into its own angst, and Night Terrors (Reprise) does a remarkable job of finding the middle ground between passion and doubt. Luciano is a performer with a knack for making her emotions recognizable without overselling her delivery, and with Bowman (and bassist Jamal Ruhe) joining her, she convinces us that shes the 2020 version of the girl next door whose essential niceness doesnt mean shes dumb, unquestioning, or willing to be anyones fool. Do You Wonder About Me? is superior ear candy that wont hurt your intellectual teeth, and a more than worthy follow-up to 2017s fine Swear Im Good at This. ~ Mark Deming