Those who have already seen Baltimore band Double Dagger live will probably tell you to see the group yourself as soon as possible.
When the band took the stage at last summer’s Baltimore music festival Whartscape on a scorching-hot Sunday, its late-afternoon show abruptly set the bar for the entire event — including popular local acts such as Future Islands, Teeth Mountain and Dan Deacon.
It wasn’t that the earlier performances had been bad, but it was not until bands such as Double Dagger took the stage that the festival felt more like an event and less like a backyard performance.
With its new EP, Masks, and a celebrated live show, Double Dagger will visit the Black Catin Washington on Thursday.
Masks follows the band’s third full-length album, MORE. It’s a collection of earnest, lo-fi songs with surprisingly stripped-down arrangements. It features a couple of left over songs from MORE, as well as a few new tracks.
Early on, the band — Denny Bowen on drums, Bruce Willen on bass and Nolen Strals on lead vocals — considered adding more instruments to the mix. Ultimately, though, the members chose a different approach.
“We essentially just added some more amps,” Willen said.
Willen and Strals, also the duo behind Post Typography, a successful graphic design firm, do not hide their confusion over the comparisons to other bands that Double Dagger receives. On its MySpace page, the group lists all the bands it has been compared to by listeners and critics, including acts as varied as Broken Social Scene, Led Zeppelin and Weezer.
And although the band is often compared to some Washington-based Dischord Records punk bands of the ‘90s, Willen and Strals plead ignorance, claiming only a passing familiarity with groups such as Fugazi.
Still, the band keeps with its Baltimore beginnings. The members listen to mostly area bands such as Dope Body and tourmate Future Islands. The band has also mentioned its disdain for some of the cheaper aspects of new music, particularly things that are purposely and overly ironic.
“We hate what passes for irony these days,” Strals said. “…When it is wielded by a intelligent hand, [it] can be a powerful tool. But I think in most cases in our contemporary world, [irony] is like the fallback, like the easy sort of cop-out.”
The lyrics Strals himself writes tend to vary thematically from song to song. As a result, there is nothing as lyrically simple as a Double Dagger break-up record.
“I don’t think there is ever a conscious or calculated sort of effort to push them in, like, a certain direction,” Strals said. “There’s times like the political stuff is at the forefront of our thought processes, or personal stuff.”
For now, Double Dagger will be keeping up with its relentless touring schedule. Next month, it heads to Europe.
“We’ve never been to Europe before, so we’re definitely looking forward to that.” Willen said. “I think sometimes it is difficult, especially if you haven’t been playing shows regularly, it’s like a lot of energy to put out … it wears you out for sure. It’s like running a marathon, in a way. You have to work up to it a little bit, or otherwise you kind of burn yourself out.”
Double Dagger will perform at the Black Cat on Thursday at 9 p.m. Future Islands and Ed Schrader will open, and tickets are $10.
waldo@umdbk.com
