Send "The Drums " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 As the Drums' recent appearance on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross suggests, frontman Jonathan Pierce is not a man who is concerned with looking cool. Bearing a passing resemblance to Ralph Macchio's Karate Kid nemesis William Zabka, Pierce prances and preens through a performance of recent single "Best Friend" in a series of stilted robot dance moves, sweeping game-show-host hand gestures, and bug-eyed facial expressions, while delivering the arch, Morrissey-worthy lyrics ("You were my best friend/ But then you died") in a hammy, lounge-singer baritone. But then, given Pierce's track record, it's not surprising he has a healthy appreciation for the absurd; this is a man, after all, who called his old band Goat Explosion.In 2005, Goat Explosion-- also featuring future Drums co-founder Jacob Graham-- changed its name to the somewhat less ridiculous Elkland and were snapped up by Columbia Records during the post-Franz Ferdinand/Killers major-label rush to sign any new wave-inspired band with swooping-fringe haircuts. However, the failure of Elkland's glossy, stadium-sized synth-pop to connect with the masses would seemingly account for the Drums' more modest, minimalist reinterpretation-- and reinvigoration-- of the same 80s mope-pop inspirations (New Order, the Cure, the Smiths, Orange Juice), one that's more likely to ingratiate itself to fans of the Labrador and Sincerely Yours rosters than KROQ programmers. It says a lot about the Drums' confidence that they've left two of their best (and best-loved) early songs, "I Felt Stupid" and "Submarine", off of their full-length debut-- and they're not entirely missed either. (The band did retain its biggest blog hit-- "Let's Go Surfing", a cheeky ret ort to the recent blis sed-out, beach-crazy strain in indie pop.) However, other songs that try to build upon the "Stupid" template-- accelerated click-track drum beats, one-string Barney Sumner guitar riffs, and woe-is-me verses that lead to cloud-parting choruses-- don't always improve on it, with the cutting observations of "Me and the Moon" ("you still sleep with your back to me") overshadowed by the annoying shout of "eeyoh!" that punctuates each chorus run. And there are times when Pierce's outsized persona meshes awkwardly with his band's understated approach, like when he uses the stark arrangement of 50s-throwback ballad "Down By the Water" as an excuse to test out his back-of-the-arena wail....full text |
| Inthenews |
| What's it all about? You haven't heard? The most divisive act 2010 is likely to see, the Drums began the year to a fanfare of hype that was swiftly and predictably chased by an equal amount of spite. If it is easy to see why the Brooklynites have had the music press in such fluster - their mopish miserabilism crossed with gleaming sunshine melodies sticks out like a sore thumb amongst their peers - the detractors have a point, too. Distinctive as they sound in the present day, 25 years ago, amid the jangly indie-pop of the C86 set, the Drums would have found themselves in good company. Who's it by? Four sickeningly pretty Floridians, adopted by New York but who sound as if they were raised in Manchester. Their influences are stained on their sleeves; the Smiths, the Wake, the Cure, New Order and Orange Juice cast a shadow over these 12 melancholy pop songs, their spindly guitars and their wistful aura of woebegotten teen love. Except even a youth misspent taking in Morrissey's forlorn vignettes can't take the Florida out of the Floridian, it seems, because for all the dejection of Jonathan Pierce's open-heart lyrics and wounded delivery, the Drums can't resist wrapping them up in the brightest of hooks. Even when the album kicks of with the lament, "You were my best friend/And then you died", the words are laid over the exuberant buoyancy of a summer anthem. As an example. "I thought that life would get easier/Instead it's getting harder/I thought my life would get easier/Instead it's getting darker/Instead it's getting colder without you." - Book of Stories...full text |
| Guardian |
| When did "indie" became a meaningless label? Was it when Nirvana signed to Geffen and grunge deposed hair-metal from the top tier of American rock? In this country, was it when Britpop smashed the glass ceiling, or when Radio 1 ousted Smashie and Nicey, or when the Daily Mail started covering Glastonbury? Or was it rather a series of gradual cultural shifts and compromises, which turned a badge of outsider identity into a soundtrack for the mainstream? Whatever the cause, the term now signifies nothing more precise than bands who play guitar in a manner that could not be confused with Bon Jovi. Paste magazine recently posed the fretful question: "Is Indie Dead?" To which one might reply: how could you tell? Buy it from Buy the CD The Drums The Drums Island 2010 There are signs, though, of a return to what independent music meant in the days when making a fortune from playing indie seemed only slightly less likely than piloting a mission to Mars. You might call it self-defeating but, faced with the naked ambition of Brandon Flowers or another of Jack White's hoary classic-rock side projects, you can see why young bands would feel affection for the small and the niche. You can sense this mood in the lo-fi nostalgia of so-called "chillwave" bands; in the determined obscurity of cassette labels; in MGMT's flight from pop towards more selective realms. And you can hear it in every note of the first album by Brooklyn-based quartet the Drums. The Drums hark back to the most puritanical period in indie music's development, represented in the UK by the bands of the so-called C86 scene and in the US by K Records and Beat Happening. Emerging at the height of Thatcherite pop values, this era was born of refusal. Where there was bloodless professionalism, they brought reckless amateurism. Where there was dull machismo, they brought forthright women and fey men. Where there was priapic posturing, they brought childlike sexlessness. Where there was grotesque overproduction, they brought next to no production at all. They had no intention of breaking the glass ceiling; it kept them warm. Of course, to spurn the big, bad adult world in 1986 was implicitly political, hence C86's spiritual influence on riot grrrl and the Manic Street Preachers. It came with manifestos and passionate values. The Drums, however, echo only the sound and the wilful naivety. In interviews they champion "melody, sincerity and truthfulness" – a formulation so bland that you might hear from anyone from Noel Gallagher to Nick Clegg – and grumble about bands who are "overly clever", as if music's biggest handicap in 2010 were a surfeit of intellect. Their obsession with innocence, or at least the impression of innocence, also leads them to early 60s girl groups and the Beach Boys back when Brian Wilson was still pretending the sea didn't scare him witless. Let's Go Surfing's jejune idyll is surf-pop in the spirit of Mac, the guy who got sand kicked in his face in the old Charles Atlas ads, Down By the Water is the Shangri-Las in the style of Factory Records (both songs first appeared on last year's Summertime! EP), and The Future ends the album on a note of Wilsonesque vulnerability and lush reverb. Their signature collision of light, effortless melodies and faintly eerie ambience, enhanced by the kind of evocative, vapour-trail synths you find on late 80s Cure albums, calls to mind goths trying to have fun at a beach part...full text |
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