Local Sounds

Denton band The Virgin Wolves rock some sharp teeth on new LP Pretty Evil Thing

When The Virgin Wolves perform, the girls in the band have a certain look on their faces — smiles they try to mask.

Vocalist Jaimeson Robbins and bassist Kristin Leigh both tend to sport a slick, mischievous expression that says, “I can’t believe we got away with this” — like kids that pulled a major prank in the neighborhood and didn’t get caught.

If you close your eyes and listen to Pretty Evil Thing, the last thing you hear is joy. You hear pissed off. You hear snarl and, at times, moments of spitfire and raw aggression.

That expression seems incongruous considering just how mean and nasty their blues-rooted, devious garage rock can be. Maybe that’s why the girls try hard not to let those smiles shine through.

Honestly, if you close your eyes and listen to Pretty Evil Thing (not the Denton-born band’s first release but certainly the sharpest knife in their drawer and the first full-length LP), the last thing you hear is joy. You hear pissed off. You hear snarl and, at times, moments of spitfire and raw aggression.

This is no blues band, mind you. But unlike so many colleagues, they don’t hesitate to acknowledge the genre as the concrete of their sound, a foundation that’s buried in muck and broken glass of ’70s hard rock and clearly interred in the dirt and mud of the Delta blues.

The Virgin Wolves is a rock-and-roll band in the truest sense. One that sounds mean, and one you expect to be mean in concert. But what you get instead is a group of musicians having such a great time, obviously so in love with their new batch of songs that they can barely contain their joy.

It’s a disorienting combination of emotions for a rock show of this nature — but it works.

Pretty Evil Thing opens tough, with the fast, impatient “Black Sheep.” (Their first single precedes the LP’s December 21 release with a whip-snotty music video.) That’s followed by the hollow, reckless, bonk drums of “Crawl” and the slow, murky, blues slurp in the verses of “End of the Line,” that's countered with a crashing bi-polarized chorus, showing their gift for dramatic, contrasting and moody dynamics.

There are no flashy solos or over-the-top, rock radio vocal acrobatics. The drums and guitar work is all feel — unclean, yet you want to risk infection just to taste more.

There are no flashy solos or over-the-top, rock radio vocal acrobatics, despite Robbins’ clear range for such. The drums and guitar work is all feel — unclean, yet you want to risk infection just to taste more. At times, the simple yet unique rock riffs echo the creep-a-billy resin of The Cramps (“Same Familiar”) and, at others, the sound of mucky Louisiana swamp blues (“Lies”).

Then there’s the reckless and destructive guitar and drum bounce of “Crooked Smile” and a clear highlight on the album in “Oh, Sugar,” with its big boom of Black Sabbath in the beginning and a slow, prog-ish excursion in the middle.

These rock songs can only be made with a lot of heart and zero expectations — with no commercial pressure to write something with mass appeal. Instead, The Virgin Wolves cut new paths in a familiar jungle of rock genres that call to mind everything from Blue Cheer to Fu Manchu, from the black-magic backdrop of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins to the big, round doom sounds of Wolfmother.

But the real treat is witnessing the show, because it’s all smash-the-TV mood music unleashed by a unique combo platter of personalities who can’t help but have the time of their lives playing it for you.

That makes for a rock show that you don’t tend to forget and would be happy to plunk down the change to see again, if only to look cool in front of a new friend you brought to the club.

Good news is you’ll get that chance December 21 at Hailey’s in Denton and December 31 at Wit’s End (formerly The Bone) in Deep Ellum.

Movie Review

Jessica Chastain drama Dreams stumbles through steamy romance

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

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Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

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