1. Alice wading
2. She has no strings
3. Long way to go with no punch
4. No stranger than that
5. Sister let them try and follow
6. She lifted the net
7. Rude (and then some slight return)

They might be few in number, but on She Has No Strings Apollo, the dirty three whip up a bleak, foreboding instrumental storm that's at least the equal of fellow travellers Godspeed You Black Emperor or Do Make Say Think. Fronted by Warren Ellis--the violinist for Nick Cave's backing band The Bad Seeds--this band of Australian avant-rock veterans twist traditional-sounding folk music into dark, desperate instrumental vignettes that reel with distortion and feedback. The territory covered in the ferocious, seven-minute "No Stranger Than That" will be immediately familiar to any fan of The Bad Seeds--so much so that you're constantly expecting Cave himself to suddenly sweep in with his coffin-deep baritone. But tracks like "She Lifted the Net" and "Long Way to Go With No Punch" roll free of conventional structure, slowly unfolding laments that show-off drummer Jim White as a very talented improviser. And it would be a crime not to mention guitarist Mick Turner, whose desiccated minor-key guitar lines provide a pale bulk to these elegantly sad songs. --Louis Pattison