Record Review - 2 March 25 2004

Rarely does writing employing the word “Brechtian” actually do much more than sound fancy and leave a reader baffled. After all, how many people have heard so much as a cadenza of poetic German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, a play whose stark, detached intensity informed the term. Boston’s Dresden Dolls, however, is a group labeled Brechtian more times in the band’s short career than many geriatric rockers have been said to be “retiring,” and all traditionally in an attempt to call the Dolls scary without implying the group to be goth.

Anyone attempting to do such has their work cut out for them: In concert, the Dresden Dolls appear bedecked in full Masque l’Mort makeup, and the duo’s self-titled debut forges a chilling relationship between murderous banshee caterwauling and piano parts that crash and clatter like ghost chains across a dusty floor.

But while the Dolls’ music is dark, it is neither deliberately nor stereotypically so. Amanda Palmer has perfect mastery of her tortured alto, and is able to ratchet it from whisper-to-scream within the space of a single verse. She struts and frets through verses, each gasp and coo more dramatic and pronounced than the last. The trouble with the Dresden Dolls is that there’s no real way to describe the group without making it sound like shtick — which the Dolls absolutely are not. It’s just that the duo is so committed to the grand gesture that the work can’t help but come across as theatrical. What results is a perfect distillation of drama and tragedy, all of it occurring in a cruel and silent vacuum. Brechtian, indeed.

The Dresden Dolls play the Echo Lounge Sat., March 27. 8 p.m. $8.