> March 6, 2003 > Arts > Disc Reviews

THE DIRTY THREE
SHE HAS NO STRINGS APOLLO
***
Touch and Go

The Dirty Three have it by the bucketful," says Nick Cave on his spoken word album, The Secret Life of the Love Song. He is attempting to describe the concept of saudade, a Portuguese word that has no exact English equivalent but translates roughly as "wistful longing." The Dirty Three have that and more. She Has No Strings Apollo is the sixth full-length album by the Australian instrumental band. Like its predecessors, Apollo is all about mood. The trio's sound has been described as depressing, suicidally so at times. But that's where the saudade comes in. Like good blues, the Dirty Three start with deep emotion -- sadness, longing and even depression -- and lift it out of the mire, transforming it by their art into a thing of beauty, transforming pain into nobility of spirit. Apollo is the most uplifting and spirited album of their career. The requisite melancholy dirges are still present, but highs are more noticeable. It isn't as much work to find the joy that rides above the sadness. The alternately morose and frenzied violin of Warren Ellis is the dominant voice, so much so that at times it's easy to miss what the rest of the band is doing. Jim White plays drums in an easy, meandering sort of way, as likely to be working on them with brushes or maracas as with sticks. Somewhere in his playing a rhythm emerges, providing a solid, if somewhat chaotic, foundation to every song. Mick Turner is equally anarchic on guitar, pulling out sounds and emotions without ever really slipping into precise melodies or chord structure. Along with this limited palette of instrumentation, piano, organ and even a bass guitar are added to the mix this time. Though Ellis never follows expected pathways, the ear latches on to whatever his violin is doing, seeking refuge in the relatively easy to follow melodies it provides. He has become an increasingly influential voice in Nick Cave's Bad Seeds, but though what he offers there is significant, it is obvious that this is his home. His playing is in service to nothing but the song and his own strange whims. To speculate on the title, Apollo was the Greek god of, among other things, order. His brother Hermes, a far more chaotic, trickster god, was the inventor of the stringed instrument. Together they formed a dynamic: the ability to find order in chaos, with just enough chaos left over to prevent order from becoming stagnation. The Dirty Three are the masters of this dynamic. There is a sameness to their albums that could easily become dull, but never does. In the midst of familiarity, Apollo offers many surprises. And saudade.

-- WAYNE WISE

There seem to be two major factions of Nick Cave fans: Those who feel that the first couple albums, with their chaos and intensity, were the height of his work, and those who believe that he hit his stride much later, with the more subdued but more eloquent style prevalent in his more recent releases. The problem with Nocturama is that it's not going to make either side happy. Almost completely absent is the visceral, malicious pleasure that made the Birthday Party and the initial Bad Seeds records so powerful and awkwardly stimulating. Also gone is the slick, unnerving beauty of albums like Let Love In and The Good Son, which made you want to dance, chest to chest, with all those people you used to love. Somehow, the newest effort manages to satisfy almost none of the expectations of Cave's fans, with a selection of songs that routinely cover the same ground and add little to the Bad Seeds canon. The soft, meandering love songs -- and there are many of them -- don't offer anything new, and the more aggressive selections come off bland and a little sterile. Only two songs really get punchy, and while they're both solid, neither really hits you like "Saint Huck" or "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry." One of them, "Babe, I'm on Fire," though pretty amazing, goes on for over 15 minutes, which dilutes its effect almost completely, leaving the listener patiently waiting for it to die, while it just runs forward blindly, with no acknowledgment of where or what it's running from. The album has its highpoints, but unfortunately these aren't enough to carry it very far. Where the charm and uniqueness of Cave himself could save many an average song, his personality isn't sufficiently employed, leaving the songs to their own devices.

-- BEN HERNSTROM