The Drones
Havilah
ATP Records
7/10
Oscillating between weak melodic shoe gaze and their best attempts at being Modest Mouse, The Drones leave me confused, anxious and sleepy. I am generally down for what most would lump haphazardly into the “emo” category (which I lovingly call cry-baby music), but even my unabashed love for lengthy musical tangents can’t be expected to tolerate some of the minimalistic guitar-riffs on tracks like “Cold and Sober” and “The Drifting Housewife” and the Isaac Brock impressions on “The Minotaur” or “Oh My.”
With songs averaging over five minutes long and most of that five minutes is a chord every other second or so, I just don’t have the patience to sit through them more than once in a day. If you are looking to impress that hot hipster girl in your Art History class, then maybe The Drones are just the low-fi troubadours that you are looking for.
-Jonathan Yost