Album Review: Cinder by Dirty Three

Australia's Dirty Three have covered a lot of ground over their ten-year career, and always as a trio: violinist Warren Ellis (also a prominent member of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds), guitarist Mick Turner, and drummer Jim White (the latter two are also known as the Tren Brothers). The band have continually re-examined their sound, and looked for different textures and dynamics while retaining their original instrumentation. Not this time.

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Dirty Three don't really fit with the instrumental post-rock scene with which they're often lumped - they have infinitely more soul, style and swagger. In many ways, the dynamic between guitarist Mick Turner, peerless drummer Jim White and violinist Warren Ellis is that of a classic jazz trio, but there's as much elemental rock'n'roll, country, and European and American folk in their heady swirl as jazz. On this, their seventh album, they've rung the changes, reining in the sprawling, visionary epics of previous records and working for the first time with vocalists.

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The deliciously mournful music made by Aussie trio Dirty Three is often classified as post-rock. However, they bear little in common with the sturm ünd drang crescendos of Godspeed, You Black Emperor or Explosions in the Sky. Not unlike American string theorists Rachel’s, Dirty Three’s violin-led lilt is really a folksy brand of chamber music. Cinder, their latest for Touch & Go, contains hypnotic mini-suites that sway in delicate rapture.

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