Before anyone had a chance to hear 333, the fourth and final full-length from Baltimore garage punk purists Double Dagger, the band's corpse had already begun to reek. The hometown DIY heroes decided to call it quits back in 2011, rounding out their career by recording of the final six songs offered up here, as well as a brief farewell tour. Along for that ride was filmmaker Gabriel DeLoach, who chronicled Double Dagger's last days on the road, cataloging their manic live performances. The resulting footage eventually became the feature-length documentary If We Shout Loud Enough (a DVD of it came bundled with 333 as a Record Store Day perk), which focused not only on Double Dagger's demise, but the larger story of Baltimore's gritty music scene, featuring Future Islands, Dan Deacon, and music historian Tim Kabara, among others, espousing the virtues of Charm City's underground music and arts community. "Most bands now don't have a personality, they have a haircut. And they don't have a point of view, they have a publicist," frontman Nolen Strals mentions in a trailer for the film. "I'm happy as hell that you could never say that about Double Dagger."
Over Double Dagger's nine years of activity, the trio never strayed from their core principles. Musically, things couldn't get much more basic, with Bruce Willen on bass, Denny Bowen on drums, and Strals on vocals. Fundamentally, they were amongst a dwindling number of bands using punk as a soapbox, decrying false prophets, the commodification of art, the hollowness of social climbing, and just about anything else that smelled fishy to them along the way (they're the same band that denounced the futility of a life spent online before Facebook had even been invented). But instead of allowing their slavish adherence to a set of pre-prescribed ethics translating as chilling, Double Dagger used these seemingly simple guidelines to reinforce and strengthen their sound and aesthetic.
As musicians, Double Dagger are rare in their ability to make so much out of so little, with Bowen smashing away at his kit like a pissed off Thing, and Willen defying the limitations of what most assume a bass guitar can do, coaxing a wide variation of sounds from his instrument while still (sometimes simultaneously) conjuring an earthquaking thrash. And Strals, alternating between plainspoken rants and throat-ribboning shouts, was often as invaluable as a piece of human projectile as a mouthpiece. (His role as mouthpiece was, in fact, an inspiring one-- having a microphone in his hand was the only real remedy for his pronounced stutter.) You could fault the band for being a bit too preachy, a bit too rigid in their outlook, too smart aleck-y for their own good. But more often than not, Double Dagger did things with such passion, humor and energy, these slight annoyances barely scanned. Plus, they were a band that got better with each release (see 2010's sharpened Masks EP for evidence), and 333 is once again no exception.
333 is an incredibly personal album, and not only for the obvious reasons. As a band that always found clever ways to circumvent their limitations-- layering memorable and varied melodic hooks underneath their tubular heaviness-- the songs on 333 take this approach even further, reinforcing their surprising capability of eliciting emotion and transformation. There's still room for classic punk contrarianism here ("Supply/Demand"), but in looking back, Double Dagger really do make the most out of what little time they have left here. "Foreign Bodies" takes all the parts of what made these guys interesting-- the grandstanding, the unbridled thrashing joy, the slyly pop-friendly hooks-- and crushes it into a tiny, 160 second diamond. On the knuckle-dragging opener "The Mirror", Strals confronts his speech disorder head-on ("When you're up on that stage, you have so much to say/ But when we're face to face, you just can't get it out"), building to a wildly cathartic climax. And with "Space Dust", one of two instrumental pieces on the record, things slow to a ruminative pace. Its simple and somewhat discombobulated parts recreate the endorphin sustaining disorientation you might feel leaving a particularly loud rock show, with a mishmash of buzzes and melodies still dancing around your head.
It can't be easy to make a recording when you know it's going to be your last. In a way, imploding acrimoniously might be something of an envious prospect. But expectations aside, 333 is as good a final document as most bands could ask for, and not of sheer coincidence-- Double Dagger were a thoughtful, hardworking band that found ways to leaven and refresh their sound while still staying true to themselves, and 333 is that bittersweet piece that completes the puzzle. As a final statement of purpose, there's closer "Heretic's Hymn", a scrappy crowd shout-along warning of a future we've long been living in, where we "banish ideas and only worship what sells." As the song drifts into a lullabied dirge, Strals makes a final plea: "I hope you won't forget: You're only free making art outside." Double Dagger is dead, but "Heretic's Hymn" is a eulogy that will keep their spirit alive. The fact that it's out there for younger bands to discover is as optimistic a prospect as they could ask for.
