The Drums 'Encyclopedia' - Album Review

Overnight hype did not sit well with The Drums, a frail indie outfit out of Brooklyn. A refugee from a torrid religious upbringing, singer Jonathan Pierce found being in the spotlight a difficult adjustment. When his schism with his (still devout) family started to come up in interviews, he was required to open old wounds for general delectation. It hurt, more than he had imagined possible.
“I don’t know of any other band in the past five, maybe ten years, who were as hyped as we were when we started,” he told me, as The Drums released their second LP in 2011. “It is easy to lose yourself... it took us a while to figure out who were were. If you run a car too hard, too long, it’s going to start falling apart. “
In The Drums’ case “falling apart” meant parting, quite acrimoniously, from guitarist Adam Kessler and drummer Connor Hanwick and reverting to the original two-piece of Pierce and bassist Jacob Graham. It is in this incarnation that they have assembled their woozy, at times transcendentally odd, third LP.
Described by Pierce as the work of “angry and confused” musicians, there is certainly little attempt to keep onside anyone who flocked to The Drums’ sweet and raw early recordings. On single ‘Magic Mountain’, Pierce struggles to be heard over grind-house guitars and synths that shriek like falling bombs – it’s harsh and cathartic, their trademark spryness supplanted by something darker, bleaker.
The sense of artists crushed by melancholy is exacerbated by ‘I Can’t Pretend’, a gothic caterwaul that very nearly collapses under the weight of its despair. “It’s almost hard to begin when you know it will end,” sings Pierce, as if addressing you from the bottom of a pit. You can’t tell whether he requires a hug or antidepressants.
A processed chilliness similarly characterises ‘I Hope Time Doesn’t Change Him’, which pirouettes thematically between death, loss, regret and heartache. The song is exquisitely assembled: a potent mix of cyanide and sugar, it lilts, it keens and soars...
As with the rest of Encyclopedia, the tune asks you to drink deep of its gloom. Though you know you shouldn’t, the music is so gilded and seductive, your resistance breaks down and, as if in a dream, you are swept away.

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