(ATP Recordings/MGM)

Liddiard and friends continue along a unique path

Since The Drones came to our attention in 2005 with Wait Long By The River… they’ve barely kept still, neither in terms of relentlessly touring and recording, nor beloved frontman Gareth Liddiard’s intense onstage twitching. Now with their fourth studio record, the four-piece keep aloft that unnerving wide-eyed intensity that infects their complex arrangements and often dark themes with an intangible level of intimidation, but have scaled back the levels a touch from 2006’s Gala Mill. This could well be Liddiard’s Tom Waits record – maybe he’s missing a little of that boozy vocal gruffness (though just a little) – but the rambling tales of night times, fucked-upness and lost souls, seemingly retold spontaneously over a whisky, slip right into that jagged mould. Even the single, muted guitar behind tracks like Cold And Sober comes from the most menacing lounge you’ll ever feel slightly out of place in. Of course, the band still reminds us of their brutal, chaotic force on tracks like first single The Minotaur and the ebbing and flowing eight-minute Luck In Odd Numbers, where their nonlinear racket swells and breaks like nothing you’ll see on Bondi Rescue. Unsettling and beautiful simultaneously, The Drones’ reputation as a dangerous world-class treasure will only be enhanced further by Havilah.

****½

SIMON TOPPER

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