February 18, 2009

Album review: The Drones

Havilah

7 / 10 Facts about this album:

Havilah is named after both a biblical land near the Garden of Eden and the valley where the band recorded it.

The Drones recorded their fourth album in a mud-brick shack in rural Victoria in 2008.

Drones Guitarist Dan Luscombe didn’t join the group until late 2006, when he left his former outfit Alpha Male to replace Rui Pereira.

Album review:

You get the impression that head Drone Gareth Liddiard doesn’t do small talk. “Just get some Heinz baked beans”, he growls on ‘Oh My’. “We’ll eat your dog, bury our dead”. How great a line is that?! His band’s forth album is less heavy than previous offerings, but the Aussie four-piece still manage to stir things up by singing about, variously: God, death, Neil Armstrong, divorce and internet porn. For the most part, guitars scream like Crazy Horses, and yeah, Liddiard does sometimes sound like a certain ‘Rotten Johnny’ put through a Dick Van Dyke blender. But essentially, what ‘Havilah’ does is jump up and down on the rotting carcasses of The Vines and Jet, stabbing them again and again with a flag that says “Miles. Better. Than. You. Ever. Were. Mate.” Matt Wilkinson