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Artist: DRONES
Album: Vortice
Year: 2003
Oh great, another band from the United States. No, not
really... Well, they are from the U.S.A., but this
doesn’t seem like “just another band” from the Redneck
regions. Drones is based in Minnesota, but exists out of
three bandmembers with Latin American (or maybe Spanish)
roots. Therefore, the major part of their debut album
‘Vortice’ is filled with Spanish songs. A quick look on
their official site (which redirects us to their MySpace
site) shows us that things like “revolution”, “civil
disobidience” and “love, life and death” can be found
among their influences. ‘Vortice’ is released by Drones
Records (read: self-released) and consists of eleven
tracks, of which six are in Spanish and three in English.
The other two? A combination of both!
‘Anger’s Bliss’ is the first track of the album. It’s a
quite electro based track, with wicked sampling and
diverse guitar- and vocalwork. The uptempo part gets
followed by some surprisingly brutal part, to end up in
the original easy listening attitude of the song again.
‘Cronica De Un Sueño’ is the first Spanish track on the
record. It’s built on a heavy bassline and some crazy
electronics, while the other musical aspects give the
track a little dark atmosphere. ‘Oscar’ comes up next.
It opens with some crazy programming, to get followed by
a decent more uptempo track with powerful guitars and
crazy sampling. The vocal parts have a little touch of
the rap metal of RATM, but the more brutal parts bring
the track far away from a rip-off (fortunately).
‘Diversify’ shows a great combination of music samples
and clean vocal parts. Furthermore, the song contains
easy listening programming and guitarwork. ‘Como Puedes
Respirar' is more of a gothic rock track, with lesser
electronic samples but a very powerful and dark chorus.
‘Mother Tongue’ is probably the most “metal” track of
the album. It opens with thrashy guitarwork and some
midtempo programming, which is (combined with the
various vocal works) a pleasant plague all over the
song. ‘Soledad’ consists of Rammstein likely guitarwork
and programming, but the vocal lines and the weird
keyparts (sounds like a flute) give the song a different
identity. ‘La Carne Del Indio’ is in my opinion the best
track of the album. It contains gentle keylines, wicked
programming works and brutal guitarwork. The
instrumental intermezzo (pay special attention to the
guitarwork!) is as surprising as wellfitting. ´Nada´ is
a more atmospheric track again, with a heavy bassline,
easy going programming and catchy vocal lines. The trick
of ´adding distorted guitars on the chorus to make it
more dark and powerful´ has been used on this track as
well, just like on some different tracks before. ´Break
Away´ is also a more atmospheric track, but the song
structure is more original. There is more variation in
the guitarwork, and the programming is a little more
wicked. The album ends with the longest track of the
release, named ´Lo Que Me Cuesta´. It contains modern
sampling, gentle programming and a bouncing bassline.
Some little keylines are added to make the track more
atmospheric, as well the guitarwork.
Drones turned out to be a more than pleasant surprise
for me indeed. I cannot think of a band who sound like
this band does, although I must admit that here and
there some parts sound a little flat. But, keeping in
mind that this is only a debut, this band can only
improve even more!
Vote: 83 / 100
Review by: Gerardo |
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01. Anger’s Bliss
02. Cronica De Un Sueño
03. Oscar
04. Diversify
05. Como Puedes Respirar
06. Mother Tongue
07. Soledad
08. La Carne del Indio
09. Nada
10. Break Away
11. Lo Que Me Cuesta
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