The Drones - any good (also Tropical Fuck Storm content here)

I may be totally biased here, but i really think it's pretty consistent throughout. Certainly more downbeat in general compared to their other albums (emphasised after the couple of heavier/faster moments at the start). but still, all killer no filler.

especially Cold & Sober. wonderful.

friend of mine has become obsessed with 'shark fin blues' and listening to it i can see why

They won best live act at last weeks first Australian Rolling Stone awards :-)

nah

impossible poll would be best drones album opener

jezebel > shark fin > nail it down > cockeyed lowlife > someone on your bond

They won best live act at last weeks first Australian Rolling Stone awards :-)

i saw them play an absolutely crushing opening set for about 5 people a couple years ago. felt terrible and bought a bunch of merch.

man how the memory fades, it was EXACTLY five people back in July

lol file this under too much time on ilx

Yeah the 1977 Drones from Manchester? I always wanted to hear them when I was fixated with '77 punk.I even wrote them on my pencil case at school without hearing them. Since read that they were a third division Eater - yeah, that bad.

They weren't bad at all - definitely up there with such luminaries as the Lurkers anyway. They didn't have punk authenticity cos they were a pub rock band before but I couldn't give a toss about that.

Pretty excited for lead singer Gareth Liddiard's solo album 'Strange Tourist'. First track to be previewed is very sparse, melancholy folk. Check it out:

http://www.messandnoise.com/releases/2000745

The Gareth Liddiard record is amazing, if stupidly long.

Must be one of the most underrated/under-appreciated bands of the now eh? Feel like they are a secret club of people who know that they are amazing live and put out worthwhile records. Weird that a band with this high quality output and great live presence would go so unnoticed. I'm speaking only in the US. Are they quite big in the UK errr?

they're not a big deal at all

still yet to hear anything else by them as good as shark fin blues

they write about 3 or 4 amazing songs per album

didn't even know they released a new album, but I See Seaweed is pretty good

there's a new one? jesus christ, i have to track that down.

Yeah, the original Drones were way better than is being allowed for here. Not one of the greats, but above average, certainly.

Trying to listen to the Australian Drones now ("Jezebel"). Plods like only the self-important can. EVERY. WORD. IS. EQUALLY. PORTENTOUS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9K0qOAVR6U

I See Seaweed is tremendous, probably their best yet.

most overrated australian band of all time, possibly

They have now been accused of being both immensely underrated and overrated itt, lol

the Liddiard album is probably my favorite of the last decade heard by the fewest people

I just heard "I See Seaweed" this past wknd and it is blowing my personal skirts up

well, this is an unexpected direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XibHLDrlUls

Nice, excited for the new album - Feelin Kinda Free (Mar 18).

So good! Don't sleep on this! I haven't been that excited about new releases this year, but I'm feelin this garage noir/art rock.

I like this a lot, I'm surprised this change of direction has worked so well for them

So good, people!

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/mar/18/the-drones-feelin-kinda-free-review-a-menacing-avant-garde-interrogation-of-australia
http://louderthanwar.com/the-drones-feelin-kinda-free-album/

Yeah, it's really fucking good.

Holy shnickys, this album is just the fucked up weirdness I need! It's like a painting that's been smeared or something. How's the rest of their catalog? This thread gives me the sense that it's inconsistent.

Also, does anyone else hear Richard Thompson in his delivery?

that opening track is fucking amazing

Also, does anyone else hear Richard Thompson in his delivery?

I can hear what you mean, like if RT was really resentful and hissing all the time.

Incidentally, "Taman Shud" is a very satisfying little invective. Odd that there have already been three rock songs this year with that name (see also Destroyer 666 and The Black Queen.)

the whole album is superlative

opening track reminds me of what wilco were trying to do with 'art of almost' a bit, except this is even better

also his lyrics have the fiery desperate quality of matt johnson's

How's the rest of their catalog? This thread gives me the sense that it's inconsistent.

I wouldn't say that. It's all pretty solid, it's just that the new one is definitely their best. The first five are consistent, perhaps to a fault, with Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By (2005) considered a highlight. I See Seaweed (2013) is also somewhat of a departure with a more subtle, cinematic approach. I liked it, but not blown away the same way as by the new one.

Do you have them all? How about a best-of playlist?

I did re-listen to all of them leading up to the new release, but not to the point where I can rank very many tracks. This site can be helpful though: https://www.thisismyjam.com/artist/The+Drones

they're all good. band are very much slept on. Gareth's solo record was great too.

yeah it's amazing, I'd love a vinyl copy but that sucker is never getting released outside australia I guess and fuck paying that shipping

Vinyl out on Fri, you can get it free shipping on Amazon, at least in U.S. It's still expensive though.

Bought the CD, having a lyric booklet helps.

This gets better with every listen. I checked out their earlier work, like it fine, some great moments, but this is on an altogether new level.

I feel like this record, along with Bowie's "Blackstar", points where I want to go. Not that they're directly comparable but they're both works of artists taking risks, willfully experimenting, full of unexpected sounds, juxtapositions and rhythms. I mean, just the way the drums build and suddenly stop in "Taman Shud" thrills me.

Cheers for bigging it up, F&B!

Only listened to the new briefly last night, I think I liked it, but it was in such a way I really want to listen to it again cuz I have a feeling I'm going love it.

I think I See Seaweed is one of the greatest/most underrated records ever

Private Execution is still astonishing

"Taman Shud" is fantastic; makes me think of a foul-mouthed Aussie update of Blam Blam Blam's "There Is No Depression In New Zealand". Love how he pronounces 'inchoate'.

"Feelin Kinda Free" is a timely expression of all the anger I feel at the state of the world.

Just listened to I Sea Seaweed - pretty damn good as well

yeah this band is fantastic
def tread that line of being really nick cave influenced but having their own identity

Agreed re: "I See Seaweed" - not as manic as FKF but equally as intense. I wonder where they'll go next, retreat to a more stable approach or continue on the avant-garde journey.

I See Seaweed is secretly one of the best rock records ever

I'm not sure they've ever come up with a front-to-back, total classic but ISS def comes closest

New record is great, but I am loving the live record so much, such a great snapshot of chaos they generate in person vs the chaos on tape

Nice KEXP performance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCantJzv05k

drones reunion tour! really i'd just like to see tfs again though

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/music-reads/music-news/the-drones-australian-tour-2026/106558538

Oh boy. Something in me snapped and I have bought tix for the final show at Archie’s Creek - will figure out details later!

I like when things say "Boon Wurrung Land" -- it's where I live -- and I still get a wee geography lesson looking up where Archie's Creek is, as these trad regions can be vast and salamander-shaped. :)

Looking a little complex for places to stay!

Feelin Kinda Free is pretty good innit. The first half especially. I picked up a cheap CD last year but only revisited this week.

I fear the Tamam Shud/Somerton man stuff extending to the cover may have been some sort of sub-rational turn-off a decade ago.

ha - it piqued my interest because my daughter was obsessed at the time! Incredible to think that album is ten years old now.

...and also that in a few short years we would know that the deceased was (probably) a relatively unremarkable civilian from Melb lol. (I was bit obsessed myself at one point.)

Yeah I choose not to accept the solution, it’s still unsolved for me

my god, I just found out they announced more shows and now the tour finishes … where I live.

You and your namby-pamby 'scientific rigour' :P

An awful lot of Sold Outs on that swelling list too.

nah no rigour involved, I just loved the mystery and hate to collapse it into something dull!
I've bought my Hobart tickets and will figure out what to do with the Archie's Creek ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R637nsVTwZ0

they've released an updated mix of deep states, it sounds like a clear improvement to my ears

If you’re wondering why Deep States has been remixed it’s because it was made during the pandemic in a studio 150 kilometres from a city. The album had been recorded and was about half way through mixing when the computer it was being finished on shat itself and died. This part of the album process happened during a lockdown (so the computer could not be repaired) and the lockdown happened about a week before the album deadline. The deadline was for manufacturing. And the deadline couldn’t be moved because it had been moved many times previous due to the pandemic. So the mixes on the original version of Deep States are not really finished. They’re just what they were when the computer blew up. This new version is stripped all the way back to what it is which is a bunch of songs recorded on and bounced between various tape machines, through ghetto blasters, some parts recorded on a bus, some in a schoolroom, some outdoors, through crunchy old samplers, with drum machines run through crapped out amps… just to see what happened. And this is what happened.