Atp Recordings
2006
Gala Mill
About This Album
Australia's Drones set the American underground on fire with 2005's Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By. It is a wily combination of Aussie garage rock, country, psychedelia, and pathological sonic experimentation presented raw and immediate with the poetically strange and storytelling lyrics of frontman Gareth Liddiard. The songs, played with a spiky crackling energy and recklessness, pushed critics to the brink of superlatives in order to describe them. Released in 2006, Gala Mill is named for the rural place in southeast Tasmania where the album was recorded. The Drones are no less on the fringe this time out, and the album's sound is, if possible, even more immediate than its two predecessors. One can hear dogs barking, musicians coughing, and birds singing in and between cuts. And Liddiard is even wordier this time out -- to positive effect.

"Jezebel," the slow, roiling eight-minute opener, is coiled to bust loose at any moment and addresses topics as unrelated as the death of journalist Daniel Pearl in the Middle East, nuclear testing in the Australian homeland, and a school massacre that is infamous in Aussie history. Liddiard refers to world events, history, mythology.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5 and 6)

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