It seems like only a matter of time before some bloated instrumental rock collective releases an album consisting of fifty-five bowed guitars, ten full drumsets, and a guy hitting a cat with a frying pan, all engaged in a single belabored crescendo. The musical vocabulary of instrumental rock seems to be largely oriented towards communal gestures, in both the grandiose swell of quasi-orchestral groups and the gratuitously irregular time signatures and binary melodic patterns of math-rock.

And then there are the Dirty Three. The instrumental rock of violinist Warren Ellis, guitarist Mick Turner, and drummer Jim White has always held a determined gaze on melody and mood. Each of the three players has a distinct style, and when they're on-- as they were on their past three album-- the results can be stunning. At their best, Ellis' melancholy violin set against the backdrop of White's skeletal percussion and Turner's hypnotic guitar evokes the painful sensory acumen of a man wandering desperately alone through the Outback's dustiest deserts.

Even as Ellis, Turner, and White expanded their sound significantly with 2000's unbearably gorgeous Whatever You Love You Are, their music benefited from a perfectly considered lack of excess. Unfortunately, She Has No Strings Apollo sees the sharp and evocative sound of Dirty Three falling slightly out of focus. Though all the elements that make their music great are still present, never do they crystallize and come together quite like they have in the past. Suffice to say, the mood isn't nearly as powerful when the aforementioned desert becomes a lush forest, and the man stalking it comes well-prepared, with tourists in tow.

She Has No Strings Apollo opens with "Alice Wading", a song that could be described as a beautiful set populated by subpar actors. At about the three-minute mark, a repeated pizzicato pattern gives way to soaring bowed passages, just before White enters with one of the most steady, unchallenging rhythms on the album. The structure of the song is certainly complex, but the segues between parts don't sound particularly elegant or organic. By the time Ellis' violin is brought to the front of the mix for a few moments of gorgeous, strained melody, the song is already on the wane.

Indeed, a dearth of strong melody is perhaps the biggest complaint to be levied against this record. Ellis' violin is multitracked to death throughout the record, and while the resulting richness is often welcome, the expressiveness of the clear, melodic lines that make so much of Ellis' work compelling is often lost in the mix. On "Long Way to Go with No Punch", Ellis' playing is segmented by swells of piano, as Turner's guitar and White's drums are kept at a near-whisper. On "Rude (And Then Some Slight Return)", that same whisper becomes a roar of violent noise, as Ellis' violin is swallowed up by distortion and Turner's guitar squeals in the foreground.

The apex of She Has No Strings Apollo comes with "No Stranger Than That", which re-enlists the structure of "Alice Wading" with much more compelling results. Here, the multitracking of Ellis' violin is anything but a detriment, as Ellis weaves several soaring melodies around the gorgeous frame provided by Turner and White. Rather than concealed, the full character and timbre of the violin is brought out, and the track is much, much stronger for it.

So even though it's host to a few spectacular moments, there's little to be found on She Has No Strings Apollo beyond any of the band's always lovely slabs of old-country post-rock. While by no means a weak release, many of the most enjoyable moments on She Has No Strings Apollo reflect only minimally the band's unique strengths. Instead, Dirty Three's singular emotional pull is sacrificed in favor of a more sonically grand, but ultimately less captivating sound-- proof that even an instrumental band can lose its voice.

-Matt LeMay, March 17th, 2003