She Has No Strings Apollo

1	Alice Wading 8:23
2	She Has No Strings 8:40
3	Long Way to Go With No Punch 4:56
4	No Stranger Than That 7:11
5	Sister Let Them Try and Follow 5:17
6	She Lifted the Net 4:16
7	Rude (And Then Some Slight Return) 8:31

Barnes & Noble

Like a weathered Gypsy, Warren Ellis -- madcap violinist and frontman of Australia's Dirty Three (when he's not moonlighting in Nick Cave's Bad Seeds) -- weaves sad, lonesome melodies of heartache, loss, and loneliness with the instrumental assurance of a Hendrix or Tom Verlaine. On their sixth studio album, Ellis and his mates, drummer Jim White and guitarist Mick Turner, augment their instrumental rock arrangements with a tinkling of piano ("Long Way to Go with No Punch"), additional percussion, and some bass, but the thrust of these songs remains consistent with their past decade of work: film noir soundtracks to life's most tragic letdowns. Typical is the seven-minute "No Stranger than That," which begins with a spare backdrop -- plodding brushed drums and deliberate guitar strums -- for Ellis's dual, moaning melody lines, until halfway through, when White and Turner kick up their heels to chase their leader down a winding path, arriving at song's end breathless and spent. Touchstones do exist -- the Velvet Underground's stirring "Venus in Furs," for example -- but the Dirty Three's bleary-eyed ballads are a category unto themselves, and a delight to any jaded ears. Lydia Vanderloo

All Music Guide

On She Has No Strings Apollo, the Dirty Three again offer up the sounds of their hearts and inner landscapes to the skies and whoever's listening. The band's tendency to start a song quiet, loose, and lovely and then slowly sweat it into a faster, intensified crescendo is familiar by now, but somehow remains vividly evocative. The emotional road from heartbreak and regret, expressed through beating music with wailing violin ("Alice Wading"), to feeling lost, heard in a song's slow unraveling ("She Lifted the Net"), and back again is part of humanity's oldest story, and is a tale that violinist Warren Ellis, guitarist Mick Turner, and drummer Jim White are good at telling. If you are a fan of the Dirty Three's past expressions, you'll be moved by their sound again as they relay new wordless tales of woe, sadness, and things past. Worth noting: The quieter, reflective pieces like "Long Way to Go With No Punch" deliver moments of reprieve, and bass guitar (played by Turner) is heard for the first time on a Dirty Three album since 1994's Sad & Dangerous. Joslyn Layne

Absolute Sound

Most probably wouldn’t expect beautiful sounds from a band named Dirty Three. But on She Has No Strings Apollo , that’s what we get—beauty that is haunting.