Better Go Home Now - Dirty Three

A few years ago I saw viking metal band Turisas open for DragonForce at what was once the Astoria. Midway through a set filled with nordic costumes, battle cries and uncomfortable amounts of sweatgrease, their electric violin player stepped up to the microphone. He assessed the audience carefully, eyes tight behind costumepaint and spot lights. Slowly he leaned forward into the mic and screamed, 'FUCK THE GUITAR.' He pulled a screeching note on his violin, allowing the tension to build. He leaned in again, a wolfish grin dancing on his face, 'FUCK. THE. GUITAR.' Another wild scream from the violin. Then raising his arms out to all of us in the pit, he cried with the strength of all of our voices: 'FUCK THE GUITAR!' Then he raised his violin high and ripped out a histrionic solo that sounded... just like a guitar.

It was an oddly deflating moment. Sure maybe the sound was a little more fluid, but there was no denying how little there was to differentiate the sound of a speed metal guitar solo and speed metal violin solo. It resolutely refused to take advantage of the sound of the instrument, pushing it as hard as it could to be what it wasn't. While the rest of the set has faded from memory, I still remember how completely gypped I felt- both for myself and for the instrument. That was the violin's moment to rock out, and instead it got to play karaoke to Power Metal's Greatest Hits.

So it was with enormous pleasure that I stumbled across Dirty Three some years later.

Dirty Three are (as the name suggests) a three piece band consisting of Mick Turner on guitar, Jim White on drums, and Warren Ellis on violin. The band create an instrumental wall of sound akin to folk music falling out of a 50th floor window. It's by turns howling and spitting to achingly gentle and sombre- and pushed right out front of the sound is the violin.

This. This is what the violin should have sounded like that night with Turisas. With Ellis hammering the strings the instrument sounds entirely unhinged, flitting between bluesy reels to industrial squalls. It manages to hit the same raging and muscular postures of an electric guitar whilst maintaining an identity and sound entirely it's own.

Today's Best Song Ever is 'Better Go Home Now,' taken from Dirty Three's self-titled second album. The song is a pounding summoning of the muse, White's leaden snares thudding and chugging with Turner's thick rhythm. Screeching through the dense underbelly like a hot wire through brick are Ellis' violin solos- a waltzing, roaring, disintegrating sound equally human and chillingly alien. Here, finally, is a song that can truly live up to Turisas' challenging refrain: Fuck the Guitar.