Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor Do Good Work, But They Can’t Save The History of Sound

['Alan Zilberman', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Vertical-Align Middle .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar Is .Alignleft .Alignright'] Washington City Paper 2025-09-19 17:18:04

Lionel (Paul Mescal), a student at Boston’s Berklee College of Music in 1917, meets David (Josh O’Connor) at a bar where the latter is amusing himself at the piano. We learn Lionel has a beautiful singing voice. There’s a lot of singing in The History of Sound, with a particular focus on melodramatic ballads about grief and family. That would be too uncomfortable, and The History of Sound is tidy to a fault. The bigger issue, one that upends the goodwill of the whole thing, is how The History of Music is an anti-epic.