Review: The Drones
I first heard the music of the drones listening to RRR late one night after an evening of star gazing courtesy of the university telescope. A Meade Schmidt Cassegrain 0.3 meter reflector if you're interested. The magnificence of the innumerable stars and galaxy’s I saw that night got me thinking about this crazy infinite Universe of ours. If any one band could sum up its vastness and indifference in music then the Drones would be that bands complete antithesis.
The Drones exemplify just what music should be, pure expression of emotion. Their songs are loud, raw and dirty, they play rock and roll but it’s not rock music in the form familiar to listeners of bands like Jet. Of course I’m not implying that they play that horrible emo music either that all the kids listen to nowadays, the emotion they transmit is pure and unrefined not manufactured and the music exists purely as a vehicle to communicate it.
It’s unfortunate that most artists Australian artists either ignored or more worse romaticise our unique and piquant heritage but Gareth’s lyrics, desperately howled and drawled draw their inspiration from the harsh reality of this land and it’s history.
The song Locust for instance,
‘Ether was the town where I was born. They pulled iron from the ground and knife wounds from the port. They built a prison and it tempered in the sun. It rose up off a plateau like the last tooth in a gum... They made the blacks live outside of town, the weekend came they'd tear the whole place down, the Chinese came without weekends at all, and the whites complained the pay was better shooting them in the war... My first girl's old man was in a later war, he drank like a motherfucker, now I know what for, she took my van, put Louie in the jack, left a suicide note and I've got him to thank for that.'
At shows singer and guitarist Gareth Liddiard spits and raves like a lunatic and damn near destroys both guitar and stage in his fits of intense passion. He plays his guitar with such ferocity that he is forced to completely retune his strings after each song. While managing this he is still able to produce some of the most rousing and rending guitar riffs you’re likely to ever hear. To say that Gareth dominates the stage would be an understatement. The other members of the band, bass, drum and guitar players, though each capable musicians seem only subsidiary to the mesmorising intensity of Gareth’s presence.
Recently awarded the Mercury prize for their album, ‘Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By’ the Drones are likely, though never will they recieve commercial exposure, to become quite a major Australian group. Unsurprisingly the message of this article is to go see the Drones and to go see them soon.
Alternatively if you have seen them and agree/disagree with the excessive adulation and truely NME worthy hyperbole I’ve demonstrated in here please leave a praise/hate filled comment below.
The Drones exemplify just what music should be, pure expression of emotion. Their songs are loud, raw and dirty, they play rock and roll but it’s not rock music in the form familiar to listeners of bands like Jet. Of course I’m not implying that they play that horrible emo music either that all the kids listen to nowadays, the emotion they transmit is pure and unrefined not manufactured and the music exists purely as a vehicle to communicate it.
It’s unfortunate that most artists Australian artists either ignored or more worse romaticise our unique and piquant heritage but Gareth’s lyrics, desperately howled and drawled draw their inspiration from the harsh reality of this land and it’s history.
The song Locust for instance,
‘Ether was the town where I was born. They pulled iron from the ground and knife wounds from the port. They built a prison and it tempered in the sun. It rose up off a plateau like the last tooth in a gum... They made the blacks live outside of town, the weekend came they'd tear the whole place down, the Chinese came without weekends at all, and the whites complained the pay was better shooting them in the war... My first girl's old man was in a later war, he drank like a motherfucker, now I know what for, she took my van, put Louie in the jack, left a suicide note and I've got him to thank for that.'
At shows singer and guitarist Gareth Liddiard spits and raves like a lunatic and damn near destroys both guitar and stage in his fits of intense passion. He plays his guitar with such ferocity that he is forced to completely retune his strings after each song. While managing this he is still able to produce some of the most rousing and rending guitar riffs you’re likely to ever hear. To say that Gareth dominates the stage would be an understatement. The other members of the band, bass, drum and guitar players, though each capable musicians seem only subsidiary to the mesmorising intensity of Gareth’s presence.
Recently awarded the Mercury prize for their album, ‘Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By’ the Drones are likely, though never will they recieve commercial exposure, to become quite a major Australian group. Unsurprisingly the message of this article is to go see the Drones and to go see them soon.
Alternatively if you have seen them and agree/disagree with the excessive adulation and truely NME worthy hyperbole I’ve demonstrated in here please leave a praise/hate filled comment below.
posted by James at 6:08 AM
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