The Drones. On their fifth album proper, I See Seaweed, the Australian five-piece engage directly with the weirdness of the contemporary Australian experience. Here songwriter and lead Drone Gareth Liddiard eviscerates the hypocrisy of Australia’s conservative politicians, narrative-based songs are located firmly in terra Australis: ‘They’ll Kill You’ is a paean for an ex-lover who has, like so many others, gone off to Europe in a vain attempt to escape her own flaws; ‘Nine Eyes’ sees Liddiard using Google Street view to observe the social economic damage wrought on his home town of Port Hedland by “cashed-up bogan” mine workers.
The Drones have always traded in this kind of fire-and-brimstone, but it’s never sounded quite this good. One of the most obvious improvements has to do with new full-time member Steve Hesketh, whose piano and keyboard work seems not so much to add startlingly new elements to the band’s songs but to allow them to develop their artier ambitions and perform their more technically difficult material live. This personnel addition bodes well for Liddiard’s songs, though, as the additional textural detail Hesketh provides allows the songs to rely less on bludgeoning loud/soft contrasts than in the past.
Perhaps the most significant change in I See Seaweed, though, is a softening of Liddiard’s previously dogmatic misanthropy, which is on display in both the album opener ‘I See Seaweed’ and its closer, ‘Why Write a Letter That You’ll Never Send’ has plenty of zingers, but the structure of the song reveals that they’re equally self-directed: supposedly an email from a friend Liddiard is reading “verbatim” (in rhyming couplets?), its chorus features Liddiard chiding his “friend”: “Why write a letter that you’ll never send?” he asks, reminding us that “everybody’s hurting / and their needs are always stark.” It may be too late to avert the coming disaster, but we need not revel in the end – I See Seaweed’s ultimate message is that we can wait out the apocalypse and make the most of what little time remains with decency, tenderness and humour.
The Fat Angel Sings 