eMusic Review
If you want it quick, short and bitchy: The Drums sound like a Factory Records band and look like the Jeep-cruising, Wham!-loving pack of male models in Zoolander. It helps to have both an appreciation for 1980s U.K. post-punk and a sense of humor when it comes to the Drums, a Brooklyn four-piece that brings all the exuberance, posturing and gayness of dance-pop (two members of the group were formerly in Elkland, a band whose career highlight was an opening slot for Erasure) to a guitar-centric indie milieu. Examined in the confined context of their queerness and New York-ness, the Drums are the antithesis of the dour and bookish Magnetic Fields; lead singer Jonathan Pierce is an all-American blonde, with bravura to spare and a wide-open chapbook of lyrics about finding joy in both love and loss.
"Let's Go Surfing" is a prime example of the Drums' strangely wholesome approach, a song so devoid of irony that a whistled melody hook and double-dutch chant of "Down, down baby, down by the rollercoaster" can only be interpreted as a sincere admiration for golden-oldies fare and pop music's more innocent tendencies. Yet it's all paired with single-string, New Order-style guitar… read more »
