Monday, June 12, 2006

Concert Review: The Uncontrollable Urge and Dead Sea Souls

By Todd Maternowski

DALLAS — Too often the act of showmanship in a live musical performance is ignored. Feeling the need to look and act as disinterested as possible, a band will trot out their greatest hits one after the other. Then due to the obligatory three-song encore, they finally, grudgingly introduce each of the band members before leaving having created no emotional link to the audience whatsoever. While this behavior may please some hardcore fans of the band, it does a disservice to the majority of the group's fan base that paid good money for tickets (or a high bar tab) in hopes of getting an amazing musical experience. Fortunately for their fans at the cozy Bar of Soap, The Uncontrollable Urge and the Dead Sea Souls threw rocker-caution to the wind and provided two beautiful examples of singular showmanship.

The Bar of Soap itself is a great venue for live performances: no other place in DFW offers the music-lover the chance to sit on top of a working Maytag ten feet from their favorite band. Another advantage it has over the massive venues towering over it in nearby Fair Park is the free cover, and hands-down the best White Russians in the world (for about half the cost of a watered-down beer in a plastic cup). The shows that the Bar of Soap books are a wide-ranging mix of local and national artists that merit a venue to voice their art.

The Dead Sea Souls opened the set with their New Wave-y, down-tempo musical style that contrasted with lead singer Michael Raphael's writhing, contorting stage presence. The band itself, particularly on their songs "The Becoming" and "Blood Oranges," has a clear Bauhaus feel, with lead guitarist Josh Young's guitar work strongly reminiscent of The Cure. As with any live show, the vocals were difficult to fully grasp but the onstage performance by Raphael more than made up for it.

Singing about demanding subjects such as philosophy and one's relationship with divinity, Raphael's vocals shot out of his lungs like a cannon as he deformed, distorted and warped his frame into odd angles during every song. Periodically looking more like an exorcism than a musical set, the singer's affecting display of emotion was punctuated between songs by a goofy grin and silly banter with the audience. The emotional connection to the audience that goes above and beyond the songs themselves is the fundamental staple of every great performer, and the Dead Sea Souls are well worth a visit.

The Dead Sea Souls were followed by the youngish-looking headliners The Uncontrollable Urge. Led by lead singer/keyboardist Jacob Sereno, who incidentally dressed and acted like an escaped mental patient complete with ill-fitting hospital gown and fake blood on his wrists, the band create a sound that is extremely energetic and very difficult to categorize.

While some bands have so many musical influences that they end up sounding like nothing in particular, The Uncontrollable Urge's set was surprisingly tight. The band's command of their instruments was impressive, especially while headbanging in unison and screaming into the microphone with raw and primal emotion. Despite sound problems halfway through the set, The Uncontrollable Urge's youthful exuberance and striking experimental ballads made an immediate and lasting effect on the crowd. And the unpredictable, often hilarious antics of Sereno's onstage spectacle are definitely worth checking out.

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