The Drums - The Drums

As Abe Simpson memorably lamented, "I used to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's 'it' seems weird and scary." These days you don't have to be as old as Abe to be left a little stranded by 'it' suddenly changing. So say a big hello to The Drums: a band that at the turn of the year appeared to be the very definition of 'it', their East Coast good looks and C86-aping single 'Let's Go Surfing' generating enough buzz to guarantee a surefire hit. Six months later, with their debut primed for the shelves, everyone has apparently remembered that there is no shortage of bands mining the C86 vein and The Drums' hype seems in danger of fizzling out. It would seem they may no longer be 'it'. Can they release a suitably great debut to silence the naysayers then?

Not by our reckoning. It's not any fault of the band's that they find themselves at the mercy of an increasingly skittish industry, but at times they don't help themselves. Their debut opens with a misfire, instantly putting them on the back foot. "You were my best friend, but then you died", singer Jonathan Pierce yelps in his mannered vocal style. He sounds so pleased with his Morrissey-inspired drollness that you can't possibly buy into the sentiment of the song. It's followed by 'Me and the Moon', which lopes along like The Strokes' classic 'Hard To Explain'. As it does so, it's hard to shake the thought that The Drums would really like to sound like Television and Blondie (y'know, properly cool bands) rather than The Field Mice and The Wedding Present, but are trying this indie-schmindie direction out because it's suddenly fashionable. 

They're contrived and probably careerist then, but they are not without their moments. 'Let's Go Surfing' is pretty great; the echoey whistling lends it a wonderful melancholic eeriness, which counters the innocence of the lyrics to great effect. And it would be hard to argue that the chorus of 'Book of Stories' is anything other than gorgeous. They slow things down on 'Down by the Water', and the change of pace works nicely. But over the course of the second half of the record, things rather peter out. One Joy Division bassline is knocked out after another, Pierce's yelping starts to grate the longer he goes on, and ultimately the sheer lack of variety does for The Drums. By the end you feel not so much that they have failed to live up to the hype, but confused as to how they generated so much in the first place - they have none of the wit or charm of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and their po-faced style pales compared to the trashy no-fi sensibilities of Vivian Girls. Their 15 minutes could be up. In truth it was probably over before it started.