The Duke Spirit
Cuts Across The Land (Star Time)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published on Amplifier online, Spring 2006

When the Duke Spirit catches, in songs such as “Stubborn Stitches” and “Red Weather,” the sound that results isn’t one of instruments playing together, it’s one of a band, a single, unitary creature pushing forward. Cuts Across The Land hits that mark a number of times, generating an inertia that’s hard to deny. Many of the songs are fast and aggressive enough to be mistaken for punk, but they come across more like White Light, White Heat with high-tension wires on Lou and Sterling’s guitars instead of strings. “Hello To The Floor” and other slower cuts are echoey and cavernous, evoking the unbalanced late-night skittishness of a slowly dissipating party. Like a mix between Kim Gordon after spending time with a vocal coach and P.J. Harvey on a low boil, singer Liela Moss’s voice somehow manages to be made up of equal parts cool detachment and fervent passion in songs like “Darling, You’re Mean” and “Love Is An Unfamiliar Name.” The Duke Spirit’s noise is ultimately more memorable than its songs, but if Cuts Across The Land isn’t sure of what it wants to say, it damn sure sounds great saying it.

Back to reviews