Review of Gala Mill Album by The Drones

The Drones
Gala Mill
ATP

The Drones Gala Mill Album

This is excellent stuff. A band from Melbourne, Australia, who beat Wolfmother to the Australian Music Prize with their last album, this third album moves the game on hugely. A swaggering Stones-y rock feel combined with raw and loose blues mess and moments of remarkable beauty, The Drones are capable of making great music whose rough edges aren't just left in, they are actively embraced and put front and centre.

There was once an Aussie band called Beasts of Bourbon whose ramshackle Tom Waits-fronting-a-blues-rock sound was so dirty it seemed as though it should come with a Parental Advisory. The Drones aren't far from that noise, but it would do them a disservice to suggest that that's all they're about - there's intelligence and dark poetry, and real intensity. Recorded on a 10,000 acre farm in Tasmania, there is a great sense of meditative, brooding, elemental rock. Gala Mill is an excellent calling card for what may be Oz's best band.

4.5/5

Mike Rea

Site - http://www.thedrones.com.au

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