Give Double Dagger credit for doing it the hard way-- when you're a two-piece band and your third man is a vocalist, there's not much margin for error. So their sparse take on punk rock is either minimal by design or necessity, and, given their background as graphic designers and their thoughtful lyrics, it's probably the former.
They've progressed as players between records: I can't imagine the band on their debut pulling off the swelling-tide riff of "The Psychic" or its artful guitar squiggles in the outro, let alone the skipping groove of "Empty Dictionary". They've gotten a bit cleverer as well, building tension with simple but crucial harmonies in "Form + Function" and "Rearranging Digital Deck Chairs", or with curveballs like the fake applause in "Stripes". Many of the songs on Ragged Rubble are brittle, impassioned screeds like standout "Luxury Condos for the Poor", but in other tracks, like "ITCFGDIY", the grooves become more sophisticated and elastic, the notes of the riffs ring out a little longer, and the pendulum subtly swings from flailing punk into an anemic version of two-man metal. Here, Double Dagger seem a little less comfortable.
But don't underestimate the man with the mic, whose desperate delivery give these fiery anthems their spark. Singer Nolan Strals sounds like either a disgusted scenester or a frustrated art student in the lyrics to "Form + Function": "It's something called context... and without it, you're just fucking around." Insightful commentary either way, and words I wish more bands would take to heart as Double Dagger have. "Luxury Condos" insists that developers are "building a ghost town" from "waterfront gravesites 30 stories high," and while "Army vs. Navy" is a little heavy-handed ("Is this the Super Bowl, or a Holy War?" is either awesome or moronic), it's at least trying to get a point across. His twisting of the phrase "hearts and minds" shows concern for the mangling of language and rhetoric, both here and where he insists "language is dead" on "Empty Dictionary". When Strals opens his throat to squall, he has an idea of what should be at stake.
The more minimal, melodic tracks sound like strident, heartfelt political punk, while the heavier ones sound like half-hearted sludge-- but there's less of them then there are home runs like "Form + Function" and "Luxury Condos for the Poor", both of which are plenty cogent arguments for agit-punk in 2007 (er, 2008). Closing track "Rearranging Digital Deck Chairs" splits the difference, interrupting slow-motion headbang-worthy riffery with nervous, pleading verses and finding a happy medium, promising more territory unexplored in the band's austere framework. Despite paring down to the bare essentials, Double Dagger's sound is only as limited as their imaginations-- and frustrations.
