The Drones' third album is a brave record from the most important rock band in the country.

Kilgore Nunce

Fuck me. The Miller's Daughter is a collection of the songs haphazardly laid to tape by the Drones at various points over the last seven years. Instead of the lumpy assortment of uneven recordings you might expect from a collection of B-sides, 7-inches and loungeroom efforts, we get the venomous bastard brother to 2005's Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By. From the first second of opening track, 'Someone On Your Bond', the Drones are at their most pin-eyed, speed freak preacher desperate. Ten minute epic 'The City' unfolds and spirals to delirious bursting point, while tunes like 'Stop Dreaming' and 'She Had An Abortion That She Made Me Pay For' continue Gareth Liddiard's formidable skill at drawing out the beauty and desperation from the charred landscape he creates.

The Miller's Daughter

Pay no mind to the misleading name: The Drones are in no way a noise band, Tony Conrad-derived, or psychedelic.

Brandon Stosuy, December 7, 2005 www.pitchforkmedia.com

Actually, on first listen the Australian quartet may seem like little more than an unhinged bluesy garage outfit-- but that's because career music fans are too often trained to shun things that work within genre definitions. Serious, give these fuckers time and they'll rip out your eardrums, perhaps even your heart.

Vocalist/guitarist Gareth Liddiard and guitarist Rui Pereira found a drummer and bassist and formed the group in Melbourne in early 2000. They put out an eponymous EP in 2001 and a year later released the full-length debut, Here Come the Lies (which tellingly included a cover of the Cramps' "New Kind of Kick"). Over the next three years they only put out two 7" singles. Now, kinda out of nowhere, comes their amped sophomore dispatch, Wait Long By the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By.

Playing together for a half-decade has resulted in shivery tightness: Notes bend and expand just as a snare wakes up; the bass adds an exclamation to a vocal line. They have the boundless cohesion and energy of X or the Gun Club. Judging them against other Australian acts, you'll find more than a bit of Kim Salmon's Scientists (see, for instance, their 1983 single "We Had Love") and, of course, the Birthday Party (albeit with less all-over-the-place percussion, horns, and avant tendencies).

Despite the band's meshing, the focus rests squarely on vocalist/guitarist Gareth Liddiard. A tall, lean rocker who flails on floors and swings his guitar over his head, Liddiard's reminiscent of the Laughing Hyenas' John Brannon in his willingness to shred his vocal chords. Fast forward to his bloody howl on the poppy, Ponys-like "Baby" to get an idea of the scratchy decibels.

Lyrically, the Drones' world's crammed with drunkenness, night sweats, and suicide notes. The album opens with "Shark Fin Blues", one of the best rockers of the year, a seemingly endless path of riffs and dynamics and a good introduction to Liddiard's nihilistic subject matter. The song's protagonist is stuck on a sinking ship, watching sharks "coming fin by fin" toward the wreckage "like slicks of ink." He thinks he sees Jonah, there's an albatross á la Samuel Taylor Colerdige's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", and the captain's "laid up in the galley like a dried out mink...dying of thirst." He admits he's going to be alone, asking "Why don't you get down in the sea/ Turn the water red like you want to be?" And there you are, losing oxygen sans friends, all by your lonesome.

The other thing the band does is slow. things. down. They take their time with pieces like "Sitting on the Edge if the Cryin'" and "The Best You Can Believe In", which closes with smears of vibrato distortion and posits that there isn't much in which you can have faith. Variations on this crisis are echoed throughout: For instance, in the aforementioned "Baby," Liddiard admits, "Man, I won't ever be free/ Though alone drunk on a beach/ Ain't such a bad way to be." The aptly titled "Another Rousing Chorus You Idiots!!!" Perhaps the track most structurally redolent of Laughing Hyenas' slow-burn blues lets it be known that "We were shat from wormholes...there's no use for order."

It's also a solidly working-class record, discussing the walk home from the factory or, as in "Locust", sketching a depressing port town. In what amounts to the town's love story, the protagonist's first girl, daughter of drunken war veteran, leaves a suicide note. One of the more atmospheric tracks, it opens with moments of feedback and single piano notes while Liddiard pensively intones, "Georgie, I can't stop drinking/ Seems like every time I can't stop thinking." The tracks ends under a distorted gale of malleted piano strings, frenzied bows, and a tidal whirlpool of guitar noise.

Albums that stick come in various shades: Something surprisingly ambitious like Sufjan Steven's Illinois, meta-smart like Art Brut's debut, as beautifully honed as Othrelm's OV, or as magnificently unrelenting as Sunn 0)))'s Black One. Wait Long By the River sounds nothing like any of these, and won't win awards for originality. But it could garner some props for brilliance. There's nothing wrong with being a solid whiskey-drunk rock band. But really, the greatest thing about such a pessimistic bunch of sots (with a truly ecstatic spitter) is the realization that they're too smart to relegate drowning to one's enemies. Hey, if you hang out by the river long enough, you'll most likely spot a couple of friends, too.

Melbourne, Australia's Drones had a lot to live up to after their debut, Here Come The Lies.

by Thom Jurek www.allmusic.com

That recording, equally split between covers and originals, is now regarded as a an Aussie garage band classic in the same way that recordings by Scientists, Lime Spiders, the Saints, Beasts of Bourbon, Died Pretty (Free Dirt), and even Radio Birdman have been heralded. Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By is by contrast a furthering of that vision and a slight turn into darker territory with all self-penned material. The guitars still blaze, distorted and wild, Gareth Liddiard's voice is still more howl and growl than croon, and the needle of the recording machine is in the red more often than not. Thank goodness. One listen to 'Baby2' is enough to confirm this in spades. Stomp, swagger, and pummel, with smoking hooks and a healthy disregard for rock's current conventions offer proof that this is an album that could only have come from down under. But there's something else, too, as the album's opener, 'Shark Fin Blues' attests -- the songs themselves have taken on a more narrative and darker bent lyrically. Indeed, were it not for the overloaded six-strings burning through the heart of the mix, one could swear that Simon Bonney wrote these forlorn, doomed-man-at-sea lyrics for the Crime & the City Solution's Bride Ship disc: "Standing on the deck watching my shadow stretch/The sun pours down upon the deck/The water's licking around my ankles now/There ain't no sunshine way way down...." On the slower tunes, like 'The Best You Can Believe', the pace snakes and crawls one moment and the choruses explode in scree and fierce wailing feedback, although tempered by hooky backing vocals that counter Liddiard's tortured hollering.

'Locust' is a fine if demented rock & roll drinking song that plays itself out like a country ballad done by the Bad Seeds gone off the rails, gathering steam and tension until it turns back on itself and caves in altogether. This is a kind of darkly humorous horror music about harmless drinking turned into virulent alcoholism and addiction. The sprawl and crank is back on 'You Don't Really Care', where the band sounds like the Cramps, the Gun Club, and Scientists all combining members. It simply spits and screams its whiskey-bent and hell-bound lyrics into the void of blackness, and rages and swaggers all the way. 'Sitting on the Edge of the Bed Cryin' is as spooky a ballad as has been written recently, until the tension becomes so great it explodes in blues skronk and swill, yet never loses sight of its hunted slide guitar hook. This is a kind of blues-country from hell, as if Dock Boggs had fronted a rock band. Here humor and pathos, nihilism and the hope for redemption fight to the death inside Liddiard's voice as his mates -- Mike Noga (drums), Fiona Kitschin (bass), and Rui Pereira (guitar) -- carry him back and forth into the sheer pit of darkness and back up to an Earth that's been scorched, so he can laugh and wail with grief in fits and starts. On 'This Time', the track that closes the set, an organ conspires with the quartet in a spirit of dread and sorrow, but Liddiard lets it all speak for itself and sums up the album in turn: "There's a feeling on the road tonight/Something out there waits with eyes/There's a feeling on the road tonight...this time...." Oh yeah, it's ugly, frantic, and reeling and careening with untamed savagery, yet comes running at the wall with an overwhelming ravaged tenderness in the heart of the shambolic, raging maelstrom.

Poptones.co.uk's Album Of The Week

www.poptones.co.uk - 14/09/05

At this very moment in time, it is the year of the RAWK. And America has already been invaded with some of the finest rock 'n' roll in years with Comets On Fire and The Icarus Line, yet, Australia, has now come to fore with two of the wildest streams that country has seen since the Birthday Party and the Saints, with the power trio of Wolfmother on one side and the freak-outs of The Drones on the other. And with the Drones, the language of screaming teenage death rok remains intact.

Some bands just don't understand. Instead of being inspired and influenced by rock 'n 'roll, they ape it, destroy it, piss on its grave by their Butlin's impersonations of Rolling Stones, The Libertines and The Saints but some, some like The Drones, are seemingly raised from the dead, zombies from Australia, with their rock 'n' roll set to stun and then EXPLODE.

Their name may conjure up images of early Stanley Kubrick punk rock fantasies of Droogs and Drones running through council estates but instead of the obvious, they entertain the unobvious bringing up from their zombie rock, the religion of Neil Young, Roky Erickson and the Saints wrapped up in a prime Rolling Stones fist with first blast of Shark Fin Blues whilst 'Baby2' is a

Yet, not is all a shop down at the local punk rock supermarket. Locust is a soulful ceremony at the rock 'n' roll gutter church with leader singer Gareth Liddiard fusing the electric blues until their mainlined Iggy sonicness washes over your psyche. Whilst, 'Sitting on the Edge Of The Bed Cryin' is more Velvet Underground gospel, with the throbbing drumbeats of Mike Noga laid waste to the subtle guitar interplay of Rui Pereira and Liddiard. On The Drones are a jive talkin' rock 'n' roll junkie versions of the Neil Young standing alone during thePanic in Needle Park Preachers on the mighty epic and flowing 'This Time'. The Drones rock. You need this.

Sharkfin Blues

www.livejournal.com

The Drones' sound roars straight out of a solid Australian tradition of crashed and burned, alcohol-wrecked and relationship-ruined blues-rock; they sound like they've been raging for a thousand long days and weary nights from the same loveless and ancient outback pub that spawned acts like The Birthday Party, Scientists, Crime and the City Solution, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Beasts of Bourbon, and The Dirty Three. Every Drones song is an eschatology of sorts, sung from the viewpoint of people who haven't quite reached the end of the world yet but can see it quite clearly from where they stand.

'Sharkfin Blues' is from Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By, their enigmatically-named second album, which was released in April in their home country (where it's now up for the J Award for Australian Album of the Year) and had its North American debut last week. It's a true howling howitzer of a punk-rock blues ballad, lit aflame with soaring, distorted guitars and frontman Gareth Liddard's seemingly stretched-to-the-breaking point vox. But amidst the pain and the suffering implicit in this maelstrom, there's a certain sort of celebratory catharsis going on as well. The man is going down with his ship in this song, but he's taking the poisons of the world with him, lending us a momentary respite from the large and small insanities that plague our daily lives. [get it from Forced Exposure]

Gareth Liddiard howls junkie-gospel blooze jive until 'Shark Fin Blues' and 'You Really Don't Care' become big dirty hits of Iggy Pop electric destruction...

8/10 - Paul Brownell (NME)

Some bands just don't understand rock'n'roll. They ape it, destroy it, piss on its grave with their Butlin's impersonations of Franz Ferdinand. But others, oh yes, like The Drones, are raised in Australia from the rock'n'roll zombie-dead with the soulful religion of Neil Young, Roky Erickson and The Birthday Party embossed in a creepy-yet-soothing and, well, different sort of tension. And on their second album, 'Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By' , they raise it to a ceremony of electric blues, as lead singer, Gareth Liddiard howls junkie-gospel blooze jive until 'Shark Fin Blues' and 'You Really Don't Care' become big dirty hits of Iggy Pop electric destruction...

Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By

3PBS FM - Feature Album of the Week

3RRR FM - Album of the week.

Beat Magazine - Album of the Week.

This is music that lashes into you like a bad hangover on the worst morning of your life.

The Barman I-94 Bar - Sydney, Australia

Finding out that this album by the Drones is on the same label that puts out Spencer's records meant that they automatically start with a few points on the board and they continued to rack up the points as the album worked through its 70-plus minutes of covers and originals (in roughly equal proportions).

However, let me give you a few words of warning first. Before you sit down to listen to this, you definitely have to be in the right mood, although I'm not exactly sure what that mood is. Perhaps just having arrived home direct from a distressing road rage incident would be helpful, because no way is this an hour of easy listening country favourites. Oh no. Opening up with "The Cockeyed Lowlife Of The Highlands", it's clear right from the start that this isn't the country music of embroidered cowboy shirts, big belt buckles and boot scootin'. This is music that lashes into you like a bad hangover on the worst morning of your life.

And it's unrelenting. These 12 tracks go for just over 72 minutes; that's six minutes each on average, except that half of them clock in at five minutes or less, which means that the other half therefore go for seven minutes or more. Don't be fooled either into thinking that the fast songs are all over quickly or that it's the slow songs that last the longest. When the Drones get a good grip on something (and I mean fingers wrapped firmly around the throat) they're not in any hurry to let go, no matter how fast they're going.

Comparisons with Nick Cave spring readily to mind (they do for the Cramps' "New Kind Of Kick" what he did for Leonard Cohen's "Avalanche") though the New Christs' "Bed Of Nails" might also be a valid reference point for some of the originals, like the anguished personal testimonies of "I'd Been Told" and "I Walked Across The Dam". At the same time the Drones aren't averse to the occasional serving of screaming feedback and white noise that harks back to Sonic Youth and through them to the Velvet Underground, raw and abrasive like the sound of someone having salt rubbed into an open wound.

Reputedly recorded virtually totally live in the studio, this is not so much an album as a snapshot. If they recorded these songs next week, next month or next year the whole thing would come out different each time; different, but doubtless just as challenging.

Australia's The Drones are a band that manages to marry the unholy twang of Robert Johnson blues pumped through an old vox amp, and sang with a mouth full of whiskey.

Jonathan Dekel - Incendiary Magazine - The Netherlands

It's similar to what The White Stripes aim for without the all American publicity machine and its gimmicks. In fact it feels like the real deal.

“A stranger laying on a bar room floor/drank so much he couldn't drink no more” sings Gareth Liddiard over a driving beat on ‘The Downbound Train’ as if he is drunk whilst singing it. Even on a slow number like ‘The Scrap Iron Sky’, the Drones build up to an almost jamming-style, full rock climax that is so intense, you can hear the spit hitting the mic.

On top of all this, unlike other "noise" bands, the Drones can play. Their rhythm section is always tight and even when a bombastic solo erupts, they manage to keep it together so well, it is as if they are wrapping the beats up in those air tight plastic bags advertised on Tel-Sel. An excellent album by an excellent band, Here Come the Lies is everything that blues-rock should be, but isn't. Perhaps we should be asking ourselves why?

Raw. Hypnotizing. Filthy. Crazy. Dirty.

Bertus - The Netherlands

Yes, Australia's most twisted and notorious band The Drones know how to do IT. The foursome drown their Punk in Noise and Blues and add a kick to go. Like a spitting David Yow (Jesus Lizard) fronting a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion stuck on a rollercoaster, everything is played to pieces here. Those who think The White Stripes are rather soft, have found the soundtrack to their beloved Voodoo-ritual. Lovely, thrashing madness til you drop!

There's nothing quite like a nice weird record.

Dominic Body - Sorted Magazine - Dublin, Ireland

It's good for the mind, even better for the skin and it kills all known germs fast. The Drones are plenty weird. Dizzyingly bizarre music is married to oddly warbled vocals in the strangest union since Dennis Rodman wedded himself all those years ago. Actually I'm not sure that ever happened, but it doesn't really matter. You get the idea. I can imagine gleefully listening to this album the next time I go grave-robbing. It would also make a perfect accompaniment for one of those epic battles Batman and the Joker have in those abandoned carnivals. I'm pretty sure it sounds great live, especially if the band play while riding rocking horses dressed in sailor suits. The only place this album sounds bad is in the comfort of your own home. There's just something wrong with listening to music this wild and unkempt while sitting in a faded floral armchair. Try playing Twister while dressed as a bear and hanging from the ceiling by your feet. Then you might just get it. Em, could someone cut me down please?

Eerder dit jaar speelden The Drones een aantal shows in Nederland.

Mark - 8 Weekly – The Netherlands

Vooral in Groningen was de bijna legendarische live-reputatie de band vooruitgesneld. Net als het album trouwens. Het album dat al een tijdje op mijn CD-stapel ligt, enkel en alleen omdat ik niet zo goed weet wat ik ervan moet denken. Is deze muziek nou zo briljant en ongeëvenaard intens in zijn ruigheid? Of is dit gewoon een grote bak herrie?

Nou, ruig is Here Come the Lies van deze band uit Australië zonder meer. De wat minder goede opnamekwaliteit van het album doet het geheel zelfs nog rauwer voorkomen dan in de eerste instantie bedoeld is met de instrumentatie. The Drones maken keiharde, zwetende, dampende bluesrock met in de hoofdrol de zompige riffs afkomstig uit de gitaren van Rui Pereira en Gareth Liddiard en de complete waanzin in de vocalen.

De meeste nummers duren tegen de zeven minuten of meer en beuken, en beuken en beuken tot je er bijna dood bij neervalt. Misschien is meer dan zeventig minuten wel een beetje teveel van het goede voor de gewone luisteraar. Natuurlijk zullen doorgewinterde fans van dit genre heavy garage bluesrock na deze enorme aanslag op de oren nog niet genoeg hebben. The Drones klinken dan ook zeker wel als een enorme live-sensatie.

Het is een dooddoener, maar The Drones maken muziek waar je echt, maar dan ook echt van moet houden. Wie net het nieuwe album van Live heeft gekocht en verder niet echt van gitaarmuziek houdt, kan Here Come the Lies het beste links laten liggen. Voor wie wel houdt van een uitdaging is dit album wel een aanrader. Ik geef toe, niet alles aan deze bak herrie weet mij te boeien, maar hier en daar begint de adrenaline toch wel te stromen. Met name bij het horen van Dekalb Blues (nummer twee van de plaat), want wat is dat een briljante compositie.

decent, messy, strung out guitar music

The Bureau De Change - London

John Brainlove: This is decent, messy, strung out guitar music - a little bit Birthday Party, kind of echo-ridden and all over the place, trashy... it's atmospheric and dark and distorted halloween rock. Halloween the christian festival, not the film, and definitely not the band Helloween, because that would be terrible. The Drones are much better than all the rubbish indy rockers out there, but not quite as good as things like the Hunches and The 80's Matchbox. Promising.

Brian Hiroshima: I have no opinion. Well, I do, it's just the same thing I think about a lot of things. If I'd heard it two years ago I would have thought it was okay maybe, but there are too many bands doing the same sort of thing... I haven't really got much to say about it to be honest.

Welcome to Here Come The Lies from The Drones.

(Marc) Rockezine – The Netherlands

In order to exceed the sound pollution of Melbourne’s – the hometown of the band - big city noise, The Drones overdrive their amps to a ridiculous level, strum their strings the hard way and beat the drums in a way unheard-of. This is blues from the gutter. Big city blues, although some call it noise. Sure, there’s enough overdriven chords on this album to please any noise fan. But there’s more. The sound is swaying between a chorus of dissonance and numerous tactical silences, only to emphasize the music even more. You can’t have noise if you don’t have silence (makes sense doesn’t it?). Also, the band writes lyrics that fully correspond to the music, making the package truly a whole. Just listen to “ Downbound Train”.

Now and again the band kinda reminds me of The Immortal Lee County Killers, using their filthy blues to scare the purists away. Helping the band doing this is the anti-production-a-go-go; thank you for the squeals and the ‘good’ feedback. ‘Cause The Drones are not The White Stripes. Simply put, that’s why The White Stripes sell over a million albums and The Drones won’t.

Rock and blues, that’s what The Drones are all about. Doing it the hard way, the best way they can. Unfortunately Here Come The Lies is a bit too long to keep your attention for the full ride. About 20 minutes too long. This is mainly due to the jam-like structure the band uses for songwriting. Don’t expect any verse – verse – chorus stuff. Nope there’s a start for each song and the rest kinda feels like an adventure. But a nice adventure it is.

All hail the new swing kings of great improve blues rock!

Lewis Fraser - Rock Sound – London

Aussie rock ‘n’ roll playing white trash blues with Sonic Youth-isms, with some added rockabilly twinge, a little Hank Williams III and Rev Horton Heat and you’ve got a nice alternative to the latest garage rock-frenzied shite currently doing the rounds. Vocalist / guitarist Gareth Liddiard has a spiky drawl that not only does justice to The Drones’ own songs, but also Leadbelly’s ‘DeKalb Blues’, The Cramps’ ‘New Kind of Kick’ and Chuck Berry’s ‘Downbound Train’. All hail the new swing kings of great improve blues rock!

Het is teveel.

Martijn ter Haar - Kindamusik – The Netherlands

In principe ben ik gek op het soort muziek dat The Drones spelen. Verwrongen blues, die je hoofd eerst langzaam vult met hallucinogene moerasdampen en het dan laat ontploffen via wel gemikte noise-erupties. Alleen op Here Come The Lies staat er teveel van. Het is een twaalfgangenmenu van vol exquise gerechten dat je desondanks tegen heug en meug op eet omdat je na gang 3 eigenlijk vol zit. En dan heb je dus nog bijna een uur te gaan.

Dus verlies ik ergens halverwege ‘Downbound Train’ mijn concentratie en verwordt Here Come The Lies tot achtergrondruis. Totdat ‘The Scrap Iron Sky’ begint en ik ineens weer bij de les ben. Want wat een intens en mooi nummer is dat. Zelden zoveel verwrongen schoonheid gehoord. Dat geldt trouwens ook voor ‘Dekalb Blues’. En ‘The Island’.

Als The Drones nou op hun volgende plaat nou wat meer afwisseling in de structuur en lengte van hun songs aanbrengen, dan komt alles goed. Dan wordt dat “de plaat van het jaar” en is Here Come The Lies het veelbelovende, maar nog onder jeugdige overmoed lijdende debuut. We wachten vol spanning af.

Nanne Tepper - Oor – The Netherlands

Toen de Australische Drones in 2001 werden losgelaten in het clubcircuit in en rond Melbourne bleek een sensatie geboren. De meest gerenommeerde muzikanten sloegen stijl achterover van deze superieure rock & roll band en vroegen ze als voorprogramma voor hun eigen shows. Het album Here Come The Lies maakte alle beloftes waar en werd de hemel ingeprezen. En ja hoor: één binnengehengeld exemplaar van deze plaat bleek genoeg om half Groningen op stelten te zetten. Nou zijn The Drones dan ook te midden van de nieuwe, al of niet gehypte bands aan het rock & roll-front een unicum. Een viermansband met het even brede als ongrijpbare geluid van een omvangrijk huisorkest uit de garagebar van de hel. Een fantastische zanger. Maling aan alle modes in de nieuwe beukmuziek. Gitaarpartijen waar de Scientists en The Birthday Party hun hoed voor af zouden nemen. En songs die stante pede blijven hangen. Er gaat een gerucht dat je bier hebt… en Grolsch. Dat is gelul. Maar dit klopt wel: je hebt de New Rock Revolution… én je hebt The Drones.

Smerige Rock muziek.

Ate Hoekstra - Gothcore - The Netherlands

Dat is wat we te verwerken krijgen bij The Drones. De Australische band houdt de eer van het land hoog en houdt met 'Here come the lies' meer dan zeventig minuten de aandacht moeiteloos vast. Natuurlijk, wanneer je het over Australië hebt en je hebt het over Noise Rock dan valt automatisch de naam van The Birthday Party. De band waar Nick Cave furore mee maakte voor hij er met The Bad Seeds vandoor ging. The Drones heeft wel wat van The Birthday Party, muzikaal althans. Opener "The cockeyed lowlife of the highlands" is het perfecte visitekaartje voor deze Australische band. Vindt je dit niks, laat het album dan maar mooi in de schappen staan is de onderliggende boodschap. Om het album toch ruim zeventig minuten interessant te houden is er ook ruimte voor meer ingetogen passages. "I'd been told" is hier een mooi voorbeeld van. Zanger (nou ja, zang..) Gareth Liddiard kleurt de muziek van The Drones verder in, maar ragt ondertussen liever mee met de rest van de band. De teksten zijn, zoals het een band als The Dronese beaamt, smerig, misschien zelfs een beetje shockerend. Dat "Hell and Haydeville", "The scrap iron sky" en "New kind of kick" niet over kangoeroes gaan die rustig in de Australische droogte staan te grazen hoeft dan ook niet onbekend te blijven.

Dat het album tweeënzeventig minuten duurt is vooral te danken aan "I walked the dam", "Hell and Haydeville" en "Six ways to sunday". Lange rustig opbouwende nummers die soms in een ware chaos lijken te eindigen. Bij deze nummers is de vergelijking met het meer complexe materiaal van Nick Cave gemakkelijk te maken. Geheel onterecht, want The Drones heeft een eigen geluid ontwikkelt in hun nog jonge bestaan. Het is dan ook niet de structuur die ontbreekt bij The Drones. Eigenlijk is er helemaal niks wat ontbreekt op 'Here come the lies'. Natuurlijk kan ik hier nu gaan zitten zeiken en zeggen dat 'Here come the lies' met zeventig minutem aan de lange kant is, maar laten we dat beschouwen als een luxe probleem. Er zijn immers al genoeg albums die aan de korte kant zijn. Laat het dan ook eens andersom zijn. Liefhebbers van White Trash Blues, Noise Rock (of hoe je deze smerige muziek van Australische makelij ook maar wil noemen) weten wat hun te doen staat. 

8,9

The Drones first review that completely slags them off

Michi - Southspace – Art and Noise – Germany

In Australien laufen die Uhren anders. Und das nicht nur bei den Jahreszeiten. Aus dem Hause Spooky Records, ansässig in Melbourne kommt nun das erste Full- Length Album der `Dornes´. Was es da zu hören gibt ist überhaupt nicht mein Fall.

Das fängt allein schon damit an das die 12 Lieder geschlagene 72 Minuten dauern. Wer das dann durchsteht fühlt sich danach auch wirklich geschlagen. Doch am schlimmsten ist noch die Musik. Auf der ganzen CD wird kaum ein Ton sauber gespielt. Alles ist verzerrt oder wird durch irgendwelche Effekt Maschinen gejagt. Bei einer durchschnittlichen Laufzeit von 6 Minuten pro Song ist ganz schnell der Punkt erreicht an dem das einem gehörig auf die Eier geht!

Ich weiß nicht, ob die Musik im Drogenrausch entstanden ist oder einfach nur pseudo- intellektuell. Auf jeden Fall sind Parallelitäten zu den Doors eindeutig hörbar. Den erdentschwebten Zustand merkt man auch den Texten an. Da fällt mir eigentlich nichts genaueres dazu ein. Ansonsten sind in der CD leichte Country, Blues, Garage Rock und Rock` n Roll Einflüsse verpackt. Nur ihre Interpretation ist einfach abartig.

Am besten trifft es ein leicht abgeändertes Zitat eines Literaturkritikers: "Das ist keine Musik. Das ist Körperverletzung!" Wer auf experimentellen Sound steht, der soll das auch. Ansonsten würde ich meine Finger von den Drones lassen.

Hampered by a name suggestive of throbbing primal rhythms and the relentless white noise of The Velvet Underground, The Drones have done themselves little favours.

Matt Brown - Logo Magazine – UK

Although in places, specifically the torturous, cascading guitars of ‘Dekalb Blues’, they could easily pass for distant cousins of the legendary smacked-out rockers, there’s a breadth of outlook here that hints at more catholic objectives. For this is white trash blues; urgent and spiky, riddled with an underlying narrative that courts desperation, violence and perversity as its focus. Spitting out hellacious feedback and prickly post-punk at an unrelenting pace, ‘Here Comes The Lies’ is an unrelenting assault on the senses, raw, abrasive and riddled with promise. Keep your eye on them.

Comes with the HIGHEST recommendation

Pieter - Platenworm Music. - The Netherlands

Totally amazing Australian band that recalls the glory days of the Birthday Party / Scientist / Beasts Of Bourbon / Raw rocking with a healthy mental problem like say Scratch Acid/Jesus Lizard's David Yow makes one of the best Australian Garage records in the last decennia. Comes with the HIGHEST recommendation.

Rojas - Mondongo Canibal - Madrid Spain

Desde Australia (las antípodas) viene este cuarteto, como os preguntareis que música hace esta peña pues os tengo que decir que rock, pero un rock bastante oscuro, denso, desesperado y crudo. Joder, la verdad es que no estan nada mal, y dentro de su estilo son bastante ruidosos y cafres, y estos tios/tia saben como tocar y componer canciones de este rollo perfectamente. Este disco puede llegar a entusiasmar hasta el paroxismo a seguidores de grupos como the cramps, birthday party, beasts of bourbon, the scientists......, en su país natal los ensalzan por las nubes, y dicen de ellos que es lo mejor que ha dado australia en rock en muchos años (un país con mucha tradición rockera). Resumiendo que es gerundio, rock ´n´ roll sucio, cerdo y auténtico, piensa en jack daniell´s, un paquete de camel vacío, una cazadora de cuero llena de polvo, un cenicero lleno de colillas.......puro rock!!, ah, y para nada vayais a pensar que se parece a grupos de rock/moda como gluecifer, hellacopters o backyard babies, por que os podríais llevar un gran chasco. Yeah!!

Mike Lupica - WFMU's New Jersey  BEST OF Hip Transistor 2002

The Drones tackle highway robbery, speedballs, murder, and betrayal before the first song is even over. Sign me up! Sign me up! 

Wow, this is definitively some of the most unique and intense music my ears ever had the pleasure to get tortured by.

Daniel - CR Entertainment - Switzerland

The Drones are a four piece that hails from Melbourne, Australia and “here come the lies” is their debut full length record. And what a record that is; man this disc contains the perfect soundtrack for a journey too the lowest downs of your soul. The drones play music that is dark, depressing, messy and threatening but at the same time enlightening and full of pure beauty and hope.

By mixing fucked up blues with a great dose of sonic noise and enough downright rawk bottom to make your feets tremble they create a sound that keeps on haunting you even after your stereo is shut off. In my ears, also a very important part of the drones sound is made up by the vocals of main singer/songwriter Gareth Liddiard. It`s what he sings and the way he does so. First, the lyrics are some of the best I heard in quite some time, raw, honest, disturbing and poetic! Second, singin ain`t just singin. Liddiard has a very unique style of vocal handling, from moaning, screaming, weeping, whistling to humming or talking it`s all done with one simple aim: to get the maximum out of these words and songs. And this is exactly what the drone`s “here come the lies” is all about: the maximum, whether it is in height or depth.

"Here come the lies" is the debut album from Melbourne, Australia’s the Drones.

Cyclops Mark - Cyclops Zine - USA

It’s out on Spooky Records. This four piece play a raw, intense trashy blues punk. They remind me a little of the Horrors. The record starts off all crazy and messed up with "The Cockeyed Lowlife of the Highlands." It has a dissonant guitar part and a herky-jerky rhythm. Singer, Gareth Liddiard, sure can turn a phrase and scream his guts out. "…well it seems you’te shakin’, shakin’, shakin’ so bad, the Pigs are gonna tack us with a Richter scale." On Huddie Ledbetter’s "Dekalb Blues" the Drones get slow and quite. Quite, until halfway through when the thing explodes in a guitar feedback frenzy solo. Guitarist, Rui Petaira, has a great style that’s feedback drentched and always seems almost out of control. "New Kind of Kick" has a slow killer riff. I love Liddiard’s hiccup vocal on the chorus. The song ends in a flurry of distortion and chaos. "Motherless Children" is the Drones take on a classic song. It has the structure of a blues tune and will rock your ass off. I love the sing-along chorus. The album has a few long rambling slow tunes I didn’t care for. However, when the Drones stick to the rockin’ tunes like the last one, "Country of Love, they are really something. So check out these boys from down under. I think you’ll like ‘em.

Goddamn, sounds like these ditchwater Aussies got the devil in 'em something fierce.

The Sleazgrinder - Massachusetts, USA

The devil, in this case, being Tex Perkins. The Drones have obviously bowed in supplication to the unholy scriptures he's written in the Beasts of Bourbon, and that same sort of clammy, brittle-boned, swamp whiskey evil is positively bleeding out of the pores of "Here Comes the Lies". The screeching, flailing guitar sounds on this record couldn't possibly be the work of regular old humans- I suspect alligator men. And Gareth Liddiard's vocals sound like Nick Cave, were Nick Cave capable of unspeakable acts. And there are walls of noise built out of feedback and harmonicas and bowling balls dropped on pianos that flare-up like menacing infernos, only to crumble into barroom boogie and alcoholic lament, without shame. And there are moments of scary, absolute beauty and admirable ugliness, trading spit like sloppy lovers. Brother, I am not just impressed, I am awed, and just a little frightened. Not since Poison 13- and that was a long fuckin' time ago- has a hillbilly voodoo rock and roll band managed to sound so menacing, and so sexy, all at once. As Jesus Perkins himself once said, "Get into the end of the world. It won’t hurt you. It fits in, just right". Yeah, just right. End of the world. Killer rock and roll.

Chris - Delayed Reactions - Germany

Bei den Drones handelt es sich nicht um noch eine reunion Platte der englischen 77er Recken sondern, hier haben wir mal für hiesige Verhältnisse was ganz obskures. Und wenn ich sage obskur meine ich nicht nur die Tatsache daß es sich hier eine unbekannte Band auf einem sympathischen australischen Minilabel handelt. Auch musikalisch geht es hier nicht gerade straight zur Sache, aber gerade das macht diesen Silberlang inzteressant. Hier gibt es ein crudes SoundgewiTter das am ehesten mit Bands wie: John Spencer Blues Explosion oder auch den göttlichen Cramps zu vergleichen ist. Wenn ich hier mal den Vergleich ranziehen darf, und annehmen würde diese Band käme aus Amerika, dann würde ich sagen sie sind definitiv auf In the Red Records zu Hause, und wem dieses Label etwas sagt der weiß auch bescheid was er von dieser Platte zu halten hat, nämlich eine ganze Menge. Wem dieser Soundliegt der sollte hier möglichst schnell zuschlagen und auch die anderen Releases von Spooky Record auf keinen Fall außer acht lassen denn da geht es mitunter noch ein bisschen kränker zur Sache.

Downright Dirty Sleazy Bloozy Rawk 'n' Roll straight outta Australia.

Lee - Sonic Dirt - Nottingham, England

It's good to hear something from the other side of the world that differs from the usual AC/DC - Radio Birdman inspired sound we've been inundated with recently. Mixing up a good dirge of hardcore punk and blues and country inspired noise. The Drones are dark, angry and in yer face. Switching from high octane speed fuelled punk to seething swampy blues with no let up. Opening track 'The Cockeyed Lowlife of the Highlands' reels you in and beats you senseless. It makes you question why bands like the Icarus Line have received so much hype over the last year. The Berry penned 'Downbound Train' gets souped up 'n' cranked up with Gareth Liddiards blues holler leading the onslaught at every turn. The Drones have been hailed as the most important Australian band since the Scientists and understandably so. 'Motherless Children' is turned into an all out fuzz stomp to challenge the Oblivians at their peak. Fans of In The Red should really sit up and pay attention, the Drones are everything Larry Hardy has ever been after in a band. If you want dark and heavy you won't be able to find any better than this.

The best noise makers from down under since the Birthday Party were releasing bats...

John Sekerka - Thrust Magazine Ontario, Canada

The best noise makers from down under since the Birthday Party were releasing bats, The Drones writhe and squirm through a mutilated blues set as the mikes feedback, the amps sizzle and the sound board smokes. There is semblance of structure, which is quickly destroyed by guitar chaos, then miraculously reconstructed before the studio catches fire. Blues? Rock? Country? Hell, yeah! This thing is hot. Crazy hot. The Drones one up the Cramps with a juiced take on "New Kind of Kick", and give poor old Leadbelly another reason to grave roll with a smashing version of "Dekalb Blues". Look, there are poor bastards who will wince at this, but you know better. Demand The Drones and nothing less.

Few sound as gritty and raw and explosive as the Drones

Bronwyn Thompson - Juice Magazine, Australia

There’s something very Nick Cave / Boys Next Door in the frenetic, gruff vocal screams of Gareth Liddiard, and the same can be said of the dirty blues-rock settings. Sure, there are plenty of contenders for the new rock title, but few sound as gritty and raw and explosive as the Drones on this full-length album.

You’re dying. I’m dying. The Drones are dying. Slowly.

Shaun Abnoxious - Blank Generation  Ohio, USA

We all are going to shake hands with the reaper soon enough. The difference is The Drones are documenting their downward spiral with music and word. Rhyme and reason. This band hails from Australia. Melbourne to be exact. Australia is somewhere I haven’t heard much about lately. Fascinating place to me though. Anytime I see something about Australia or New Zealand on TV I watch it. I’m a big fan of past Oz acts like The Chosen Few, Cosmic Psychos, Thought Criminals, and shit. Well, The Drones do not disappoint. Fusing blues and rockabilly into something that sounds like The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion mixed with The Cramps. The Drones attack with a non-diluted venom and have the hard lives to prove it. Reading their bio is like reading a group’s last chance, it’s either this (The Drones), or death and depravity. Hell, maybe even all three. The Drones are mean. The Drones are poetic dissidence! The Drones are upfront. The Drones are the raw human emotion of THE END. This is the kind of band that I would like to shake a case of beer with and make a suicide pact. You die, I die, we all die.

Straight outta some Melbourne garage, The Drones are the latest guitar-stranglers to get back to basics.

Jeff Apter - Rolling Stone - Australia

You can trace their roots to such thrillseekers as the Beasts of Bourbon, hence this album of beer-stained rave-ups.  Best of all, this four-piece play like tomorrow may never come, always a good thing.

As rough as guts and twice as entertaining...

Zolton Zavos - Revolver Mag - Sydney, Australia

As rough as guts and twice as entertaining, the Drones are everything the Vines aspire to be without the fancy haircuts or crash marketing. Hailing from Perth, they symbolize the most menacing thread of contemporary music, their unpredictable sonic explosion a mess of disturbed and dangerously unmelodic power chords.

Yet, in the finest tradition of ultra alternative indie pop, this is music that swings, bad ass grooves kicking through a hazy wash of distortion and growls.

Early Birthday Party, the Dukes, the Scientists...the aural lineage is impressive.

It's metamorphosis into the 21st century is no less overwhelming.

The Drones are disturbing...

Kopper - The Wayback Machine radio show KDHX-FM 88.1, St. Louis, Mo. USA

Thanks for the CD! The Drones are disturbing. They get under your skin and fester, like an open wound. Irritating. Scathing. Itching. Feverish. Fucking annoying, but in a great way. It got so deep into my brain from listening to this that I got a Drones hangover. I feel like utter shit now, but it's a wonderful thing.

With all the power of a full force sonic emotional whirlwind...

Nazz (tarzangripisrealgoodshit) - Rip It Up - Adelaide, Australia

With all the power of a full force sonic emotional whirlwind, Melbourne’s noisy, raggedy-ass Riprockers The Drones exorcise a booty load of demons on Here Come The Lies - and don’t it feel good! Like a form of contemporary urban guerilla blues (metaphorical or otherwise), there’s no mistaking the explosive nature of the expunged emotions they wring their collective instruments here. It could also just easily be called gen-yoo-ine folk punk a la Dirty Three, The Birthday Party, Come, JSBX or The Swans. We’re talking about longing, torture, torment, hatred, dissatisfaction, sexual angst and the need for thrills - all the good stuff. The Drones capture a certain sense of soul with every gleeful drop of (their own) blood spilled by not so much beating around the bush but just fucking getting on with it.

There’s also a very interesting revivalist streak going on in these murky waters. Traditional tunes such as Downbound Train, a thumping take on Motherless Children and Ledbelly’s Dekalb Blues are all run through The Drones’ gauntlet and transformed unprettified for the new century; as is their debauched tear through The Cramps’ New Kind Of Kick. Raw, beaten, skinned yet alive and still ready to fight, these readings not only sound like The Drones’ own story but like a nightmare coming to a bedroom near you. Their own tales are told with adept lyrical imagery, even if they are often desolate, they’re always fun. The record’s centrepiece is a sprawling monolith called Six Ways to Sunday, boasting lines such as, "strung up from the moon by your umbilical cord," and taking the listener to hell (in a hat basket) and back with white-hot seething dismissive fury.

The Drones are certainly rock’n’roll and anything but nice - dark, agro, blood-stained, fucked up and horny — what more could you ask?

i don't know a thing about these aussies but they sure raise one helluva cool racket!

Manthon - The Rawk - Nashville, USA

not as outta control as the beasts of bourbon but similar in sound... equal parts skronk and swamp...they are on to something here. remember naked prey? band from arizona in the mid-80's? this is along those lines but with a little more piss 'n' vinegar. cool take on the cramps' "new kinda kick" is included but the real highlight is their take on the trad. "motherless children" which would scare the hell outta any kid i know!

The record that broke through my writer's block.

The Reverend Wayne Coomers - The First Church of Holy Rock and Roll - Columbia, USA

All the way from Perth, Australia, this well-named foursome make the noise of the best bad hangover you ever had and, in the process, beat the run of American "shit blues" bands (like Immortal Lee County Killers and the Soledad Brothers, for instance) coming and going, not only because they don't try so hard to be "bad" and eschew minstrel tomfoolery, but also because they write with detail (cover the hell outta "New Kind of Kick," and it's not nearly the best song). If you're tired of waiting for some new Mick Collins stuff, here you go.

This CD contains without a doubt some of the most intense shit I've heard in a looong time.

Mack - The Trash Compactor - Germany

White Trash Blues has never sounded so urgent and so desperate before, and it's also so entirely different from what you might expect from some 20-something Australians playing the blooze. The local press already praised the Drones to the skies and described them as a conglomerate of Blues Explosion-style noise, early Cramps-like rock'n'roll mess and the gloominess of Nick Cave's Birthday Party. I also hear the manic-depressive anger of early Black Flag and a good chunk of Neil Young & Crazy Horse circa "Ragged Glory". Add to this the lyrical maturity of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and you'll get half of what the Drones are about. The other 50 percent is totally their own blood, sweat and tears that should lead the band either to world-wide fame or total obscurity. There's no room for mediocrity here. So if you're looking for good time garage romp you definitely came the wrong place. "Here Come The Lies" is music for the bad times but in a good, good way. Buy this CD and let the Drones take you on a 70 min+ rollercoaster ride into the tormented soul of an angry man - a ride that's dangerous, sinister, eloquent and never boring. You won't be disappointed.

******

Martin Jones - Inpress - Melbourne Australia

The Drones are a live band.  Nobody’s going to dispute that.  No Steely Dan style studio journey’s for them.  Here Come The Lies is essentially a well recorded live CD, but without the audience.  So why bother recording a Drones CD at all?  Why not just tell people ‘if you want to hear The Drones, get down to The Tote, The Espy, or wherever, and see them live’? Well not everyone in this world can make it to The Tote any given night of the week.  Do you want them to be deprived of the opportunity to wig out to The Drones dark and manic energy just because they’re geographically challenged? No you don’t.  So here’s the album.

And even if you are capable of seeing these Perth transplants play in their new home town of Melbourne any night, you might be so enchanted by their dense sandstorm blasts that you want to be able to keep them near and listen to them whenever you feel the driving urge to escape from the ordered, and mundane necessities of daily life.  When you want to grow your hair long, not shower for a couple of days, live on alcohol and cigarettes and sleep in your cloths.

Yep, The Drones want to let you know that the dark side is not dead and buried.  That rock and roll can corrupt and excite and disturb and possess you and that, even if it’s only a one hour fantasy, leave you heaving and smiling, a richer person.  By playing the songs live, the band themselves are actually doing that on tape, making Here Come The Lies potent medicine.

So imagine if all of we citizens of the globe subjected ourselves to such things on a regular basis.  Picked up our Drones records off our desks, walked out at lunch-hour with a pair of headphones, faced a few demons, exorcised a few frustrations, leapt into the air and walked back to that desk an hour later with twinkly eyes, Hmmmm

Twelve bars never sounded so threatening.

Murray Engleheart - Drum Media / Metalshop.com - Sydney, Australia

Intensity thy new name be Melbourne’s The Drones with their debut full length slab, ‘Here Come The Lies’ on Spencer P. Jones’ Spooky Records label. Jesus! Whatever the hell it was The Scientists, The Birthday Party and very early Cramps were summoning this lot, and are channeling whole in all it’s evil glory. I haven’t heard anything in a rockist format as deliciously unsettling as this in many, many years. And it’s no white heat thirty minute blaze of black heartedness. We’re talking 12 tracks over an epic 73 minutes which makes for one marathon utterly draining listen which may well have been the whole idea. The new devil’s music starts here. Twelve bars never sounded so threatening.

Cow-punk jailbirds launch lean and nasty debut

Michael Dwyer - CitySearch - Melbourne , Australia

It was Bono who coined the phrase "three chords and the truth" to describe all that's noble and powerful about rock'n'roll. Unspeakably raunchy Perth outfit The Drones beg to differ with their potent debut, Here Come The Lies.

Guitarists Gareth Liddiard and Rui Pereira did a bunk from Gutterville Splendour last year to move east. Bassist Fiona Kitchin followed later and, with drummer Chris Strybosch on board, they quickly gobsmacked Melbourne audiences with an approach reminiscent of the Cramps, the Birthday Party and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at the business end of a petrol-drinking contest.

All the wild western fire and horror is beautifully captured on the new LP, an hysterical catalogue of guns, murder, getaway cars, controlled substances, toilet seats and the desperate characters who abuse them. As if they needed validation, it's out on Spooky Records, home to original cowpunk outlaw Spencer P Jones.

Dan Brodie reckons he’d walk across a desert to see this band

Sonic Sally - Time Off - Brisbane, Australia

Lucky for him, they play practically on his doorstep in their adopted home of Melbourne. Spencer P Jones calls them “Australia’s answer to Blacktop” and Tex Perkins says they’re “the best Aussie band since The Scientists”.    (Some people don't read bio's properly and miss some of the detail.  Tex was talking about The Gutterville Splendor Six where some of The Drones sprang from. -Ed Spooky)

In the face of that high praise, this debut full-length shapes up very well indeed. ‘The Cockeyed Lowlife Of The Highlands’ rips with the menace of the original ‘Your Pretty Face…’. ‘The Downbound Train’ is catchy, bluesy rock. ‘New Kind Of Kick’ and ‘Motherless Children’ are garage gems.

The other side of The Drones is just as intriguing: ‘Six Ways To Sunday’ is a Rowland S. Howard-style dirge and ‘Dekalb Blues’, ‘The Scrap Iron Sky’ and ‘I’d Been Told’ have a sense of desolation that lingers.

* * * *

Ben Butler - Big Issue - Melbourne, Australia

Totally straight up rock’n’roll: that’s what Melbourne quartet The Drones promise. And deliver. Here come the lies (Spooky) is loud, spiky, beefy, and soulful: two guitars, bass, drums and lead singer.  There’s even a touch of country in there somewhere. Forget your Strokes and Vines and buy this record instead.

* * * *

Jeff Gorfeld - The Age 'EG' - Melbourne, Australia

The river of new music flows unabated, and experienced tune shoppers develop triggers that may at least indicate something is worth a listen, be it a label, producer, session musicians or trusted artist. This debut from Perth transplants The Drones presses several buttons.  The Melbourne- based Spooky Records, recent home of Spencer P. Jones, is becoming a sure-fire sign that the band behind the label rock like fiends, and a big thanks to producer Loki Lockwood, working out of Atlantis Studios, for the grimy, grinding one-take sound.  The Drones climbed out of the same primordial DNA swamp that gave rise to Kim Salmon’s Scientists, Beasts of Bourbon and Neil Young in Crazy Horse mode, all raw vocals and great slabs of discordant guitars pushed to the point of ragged glory.  Gareth Liddiard is the talent on vocals, guitar and main songwriting, while Rui Pereira on guitar, Fiona Kitchen on bass and Chris Strybosch on drums flesh out a band that are really something special. Not all of the songs work, but numbers such as the eight-minute psycho-dramas I Walked Across the Dam and Hell and Haydevils show they’re not afraid to push the boundaries.

This is some dark and snarling music.

Tim Scott - Beat Album of the Week - Melbourne, Australia

The songs themselves bring back memories of faded Dinosaur Jr t-shirts and stinky cowboy shirts, of plastic beer pots with cracks in them. Of rolled cigarettes and of being drunk by 4 in the afternoon. Of getting to the show late and trying to snake your way through to the front of the crowd without being spotted by the speed freak who still thinks you owe him money. It’s music of scuffed Blundstones and chatting up people you’re not really even that interested in. ‘I’ve Been Told’ oozes with the same kind of helplessness as a 3 day binge, of waking up the next day with cuts on your hands and gum in your hair. Recorded live the songs subject matter is as dark and unrelenting as it gets. Topics include everything from driving getaway cars, forlorn hookers and drunken guys lying almost dead on barroom floors. But despite the bleak subject matter of most songs Here Come the Lies is not without a good shot of humour ‘Chrome! Preen! Tarzan Grip is real good shit! cries vocalist Gareth Liddiard on a cover of the Cramps ‘New Kind of Kick’ while on the album’s best track ‘Six Ways to Sunday’ he sings ‘What felt like purgatory just last week is starting to feel more like a toilet seat’ This is swamp blues at it’s swampiest. You want classic song structure or ‘love me tender’ type lyrics, we’ll you’ve come to the wrong place. There’s going to be a lot of people who will hate the songs, the delivery, the singing and the playing. The Drones don’t give a fuck. They are from Perth. They are used to people hating them. The guitar of Rui Pereira morphs in and out of the bass licks of Fiona Kitchin while angry drums of Christian Strybosch help with the menacing vibe. But it’s Liddiard vitriolic and venomous snarl that makes the songs sound well so, angry.  Covers of Chuck Berry’s ‘Downbound Train’ and Leadbelly’s ‘Dekalb Blues’ are given their own unique spin and the by the closing ‘The Country of Love’ where Liddiard sings about ‘pills and dildos and constipation and lies’ you’ve realise that you’ve born witness to a harrowing 12 songs.

Here Come The Lies

AMP Win

Double Door, Chicago, IL: 14 February 2006

by Johnny Loftus, Pitchfork www.pitchforkmedia.com

Valentine's Day. The normally bustling five-points corner of Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood was almost serene, only the murmur of passing lovebirds shuffling home from romantic dinners. But inside the Double Door, just off the corner, the scene was a little scruffier. Girls with frocked Chrissie Hynde hairdos huddled in groups while parka'd dudes pounded back PBRs, and onstage Sybris got into the spirit with some R-rated chatter. "Be sure to check out our finger-banging booth in the back," one of the guys in Sybris offered sarcastically. What a romantic. But the boozy sensibility in the room-- something much gruffer than warm and cuddly-- was about right for what this was: scraggly rock bands playing music with gravity on a manufactured holiday.

Sybris and the Ponys, the other bands on the bill, are hometown heroes. But the Drones, from Melbourne, fit right in. Their sound is an afflicted howl, like a lament in the cathedral of feedback. There's something like folk or blues sloshing around at the bottoms of their songs, and when Gareth Liddiard sings like he's gasping for air or another drink, you start to imagine you're seeing Shane McGowan standing just off stage. Liddiard was the center of everything for the Drones' set-- propped like a rusty spindle at the center of the stage, he was flanked by icy brunette bassist Fiona Kitchin on one side and the supporting Fender wrangle of Rui Pereira on the other, with drummer Mike Noga crashing along supportively back there in the crimson-tinted shadows. He would rend the neck of his guitar to get these bent and scraping notes, and bang on the pickups with a closed fist before reaching back up to the mic to choke out another couplet of anger split with mourning. What was driving the conflicting emotions in "Baby2" and "Sitting on the Edge of the Bed Cryin'" wasn't really clear-- it isn't on Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By, either. But live, as on record, what mattered was the way those grave lyrics interchanged with the peels of treble and feedback and muddy, puttin'-the-hurt-on bass lines. There's an enveloping quality to the Drones' songs-- like feeling your boot sink into silt and seaweed that lies unseen just beneath the brown water-- and that's how it felt from the crowd, even if the band seemed a little distracted.

It's not like they didn't want to be there. They pulled off "Locust" and "Shark Fin Blues" with determined tact, leveling out the rhythms when Liddiard started whispering hoarsely (sometimes so hoarsely it didn't sound like words but the exhalation of a cigarette) and turning up the intensity when the songs called for it. But there was the sense that they were just doing it again, for another crowd in another town. Well, forgive the Drones for not showering the crowd with 'Be Mine' hearts. From the gripping whine and very real gloom in their songs, love and happiness have certainly never been their style. Even if this show was on some kind of floofy greeting card holiday.

Smoosh, The Drones - Cargo, London 28/11/2005

"It’s like listening to The Grates playing boogie woogie..."

“Hi! We’re Lead Balloon!”

So mumbles Gareth Liddiard, singer and guitarist with The Drones, who have come all the way from Australia to be the support act on a bill on which they were not even mentioned. It’s fair to say that they are not happy about this state of affairs.

I love it when bands get grumpy. Very often this means that they give a memorable performance by trying to prove themselves to the crowd who have irked them. This is certainly the case tonight, as what follows is half an hour of full on axe mangling, audience baiting and angular blues shouting. They are very loud and very enjoyable, with Liddiard and second guitarist Rui Pereira competing with each other as to who can wring the loudest squall of feedback from their instrument. Bassist Fiona Kitschin keeps her eye on the drummer and lets the boys be boys. The set ends with the guitarists prone on the floor of the stage, rolling around on their instruments and working their effects pedals with their hands. You could call it indulgent, but they put on a hell of a live show, and I for one will happily see them again...

Live Reviews

Interviews