Monday
October 3, 2005
arts.michigandaily.com
artspage@michigandaily.com
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Courtesy or Mataaor
Chest hair is awesome.
" Post-punk foursome
drops ambitious LP
By Aaron Kaczander
Daily Arts Writer
To a certain extent, it feels as though
each of the four members of The Double
play in their own band. The instruments
are frenzied and withdrawn, the produc-
tion is sparse, and the vocals meander.
So it becomes safe to say that these guys
have no business
playing under the The Double
same bill - much L
less on the same Loose In the Air
record. The surpris- Matador
ing element of this
equation is that it actually works on
Loose in the Air. Somehow, The Double,
a group of morose-sounding Brooklyn
shoe gazers, manages to make a record
that is both thick and atmospheric, yet
also an enjoyable listen.
The Double's loose, experimental play-
ing tendencies are liable to gain them the
ambient-pop label. Fortunately for the
already overly crowded post-punk scene,
1 Loose in the Air has the mobility to lean
toward a more accessible, impatient listen-
er. At 10 tracks, all it takes is two, maybe
two-and-a-half spins to realize that these
guys may not be another East Village-
copycat band. They immediately sound
like dozens of contemporaries, but as an
entire album, Loose's dizzying musical
style proves to be more ambitious.
Take, for example, the detached vocal
infections of singer David Greenhill.
Apart from his own introspective whine,
he evokes a variety of other glaringly spe-
cific musical voices. At one point, he has
the slack-jawed saunter of Pavement's Ste-
phen Malkmus ("Hot Air"), and the next
he's toying with the timbre of Interpol's
Paul Banks ("In the Fog"). Greenhill's
distant, almost careless vocal arrangement
threads airy bass and screeching guitar in
with a seamless suture.
"Idiocy" is the album's siren song, a
track labeled with a galloping drum beat
and catchy vocal tick. In the No. 2 spot,
this sets a high standard for the rest of
the record. Though few other tracks
contain the vivacity and drum-along
mood of the potential single, each song
conjures another mood of sarcasm and
filthy New York moodiness.
Greehnill's vocals aren't the only
effects-laden additions, and it some-
times feels the whole album was dipped
in a vat of reverb and hung to dry next
to a stinky Brooklyn dumpster. Loose
sags when The Double let their dis-
tant complexities become too distant,
leaving the listener well near tears of
anticipation for when the reverberating
wail and mopey whine will cease. For
instance, two minutes of near silence
precede the seven-minute snoozer
"Dance." Fortunately, this aura of elit-
ism is masked by The Double's con-
stant stabs at musical reinvention.
Loose has a beckoning replay value
that, until after the second listen, is
almost invisible. But it's albums like
this that provide trinkets of pleasure
after careful consideration time and
again. Though it lags in the well-tread-
ed waters of Brooklyn post punk, it
proves that this foursome means to cre-
ate more than just a well-dressed ambi-
ance and dirty martini.
Courtesy of New Line
"I suggest you wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, Mr. i-last-starred-in-'Radio.' "
RHISTORY LESSON
CRON EN BERG CRAFTS HARROWING MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE
By Amanda Andrade
Daily Arts Writer
The common assumption goes like this: A pri-
mal urge for slick violence and sweaty, glammed-up
sex are all that seduce teeming
crowds of 9-to-5 Americans A History of
away from their fist-clenched Violence
dollars and into the sensory
deprivation of a stadium-seated At the Showcase
multiplex. Movie studios stake and Quality 16
millions on the principle that New Line
kung-fu, AK-47s and busty
babes in skimpy tops - preferably side by side -
sell. David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" is
a masterful subversion of precisely that flesh-market
mentality, crafting an unsettling indictment of a cul-
ture of violence and voyeurism.
The film opens in a familiar small town, where a
diner owner named Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen, "The
Lord of the Rings" trilogy) becomes an unwitting hero
after killing a pair of murderous thugs in self-defense.
Tom is a family man, devoted completely to his wife,
Edie (Maria Bello, "Secret Window"), and their two
perfect children. The hoodlum she kills are sociopathic
killers - Cronenberg wants to make this easy.
But things turn nasty when a shady figure from
Philadelphia named Carl Fogerty (Ed Harris, "A
Beautiful Mind"), with a bum eye and a pair of
gorilla bodyguards, accuses Tom of being a mob
man by the name of Joey Cusack. Determined to
protect himself and his family, Tom stumbles into
an unbreakable cycle of violence that only seems to
escalate with every attempt to end it.
Eventually, circumstances summon the hero back
to Philadelphia where a run-in with the sublimely
funny William Hurt ("The Village") allows Cronen-
berg to compose his final crescendo with the pops
and bangs of gunfire, and the splatter of warm blood
on a cold and rugged face.
It's the hyper-real violence, simultaneously repul-
sive and mesmerizing, that transforms the film from
a conventional underdog fable to something haunt-
ingly relevant. The camera doesn't pull back from
smashed noses, bullets to the head or a dying man
with his face to the tile floor, choking for air through
the dark stream of his own blood.
Cronenberg also plays extensively with movie
archetypes - the arrogant sports bully, the outland-
ishly accented mob boss - even Mortensen's limp
resembles the John Wayne gait of a shining movie
superhero. And true to form, the audience has no
doubt that, faced with a room full of heavily armed
killers, the defenseless hero will saunter off unharmed
into the bloody sunset.
By playing so close to filmic conventions,
Cronenberg subverts them. From the media thirst
for gory detail to the audience's perverse longing
for the next good punch in the face, this is more
than just a violent film. It digs into the very heart
of violence in American culture.
To that end, leading-man Mortensen is perfect. Not
only does the actor possess the matinee-idol looks
and dripping-testosterone sex appeal of an action-
star god, but he carries all the hero baggage of his
orc-slaying days in Middle Earth. It doesn't hurt that
his performance is as shaded and nuanced as the film
itself, or that his chemistry with Bello is genuine and
complex. In one of the film's most disturbing scenes,
the desperate couple finally marries Hollywood's
passions for exploitative sex and aggressive violence
- too bad it's among the least commercially appeal-
ing scenes ever shot on film.
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