Customer Reviews

Gala Mill

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The Gala Mill album is filled with such a dark and menaging atmosphere, achieved in few other works. The only respite is in two tracks, Leavin' for the Country, and Work for Me, which could be the sexiest Australian song of all time. The rest of the work is intensely dark and extreme, songs not for the faint hearted. The narrative of I Don't Ever Want to Change, captures the essence of an amoral drifter. The convict ballads, Words From the Executioner to Alexander Pierce and Sixteen Straws, are not only historically accurate depictions of the time, but beautiful renderings of the past. The opening track Jezebel is the heaviest hardest song on record, seven minutes of burning modern hellfire, tracking the through the Middle East and Second World War, while destroying the listeners inner ear. Despite this opening extremity the rest of the album, bar I Don't Ever Want to Change, isn't sonically overpowering, rather slowly building and protracted darkness perfectly complimenting the lyrical content. Not for a new listener to the Drones, the somewhat more polished Havilah is a better starting point, then work backwards all the way to the raw insanity of ...Here Comes the Lies.

The Drones are out there on the edge where few venture. Not interested in hiding flaws, they pick them apart and revel in the imperfections. Truly without peer. "I lived in the country where the dead wood aches, in a house made of stone and a thousand mistakes". Making music as if nobody is listening, and sounding all the better for it.

They came close with "Wait Long By The River...", but I think while their lyrics were genius, they still had some musical progression to do. But with Gala Mill, The Drones have perfected both aspects of their music and I'm happy to say I think Gala Mill is a masterpiece and probably the best album of 2006.

For those who aren't familar with the band they're sound is a mix of Bob Dylan/Van Morrison's voice and Neil Young's guitars - with lyrics which easily match all the aforementioned.

Recorded in a barn in Tasmania, Australia the sound is suprisingly crisp and produced perfectly. Starting with the barking of a dog in the long distance and then blasting out chords on an electric guitar for Jezebel....it's chilling how great the album starts. Then ending with an 8 minute acoustic opus called "Sixteen Straws" which is a story based on one line from a real poem (and then expanded), The Drones show they have the potential to be as big as Radiohead on the rock scene in an album which is all killer and no filler.

Gala Mill is a much different sound then The Drones earlier releases. It captures their live sound much more completely, and the overall speed of the album is slower. Still, this album just completely rocks. Check out "I looked down the line and I wondered" and "Jezebel" to be absolutely amazed. Gareth Liddiard's vocals are just stunning, and as usual, the rest of the band keeps pace.

The new album picks up where Wait Long By the River... left off. Superb lyrics and great, raw, complex music. When's the last time you heard a band capable of conveying music with honest, genuine emotion? Try it, I promise you won't regret it.

With "Gala Mill", their third full length outing, The Drones have given us a protean colossus of an album. The howling, demonic fury of their previous release "Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By", has given way to a more circumspect, haunting and melancholic set of songs. The opening track "Jezebel", has more poetic and musical brilliance than most bands manage in an entire album. It clocks in at nearly eight minutes, but still leaves you wanting more. "Gala Mill" is a more intimate but no less psychologically intense offering than "Wait Long By The River ...", but much more accessable to the average listener. The final track on the album "Sixteen Straws", is perhaps the most remakable: a harrowing tale of the brutality of life (and death) in a 19th century Australian penal settlement, with lyrical imagery so vivid that it plays out like a film reel in your mind. "Gala Mill" is a portrait of a band bristling with creative energy and musical cohesion. Long may they rock.