The Drums

Encyclopedia(Island Records)
06/20

For those of you who weren’t already bored of the mere memory of The Drums’ insipid indie pop, they are back and have gone seriously fucking experimental on our ass (or at least tried to). Possibly as a result of one of them getting a copy Merriweather Post Pavillion in their stocking last year, Encyclopedia is largely a record of abortive, lofty ideals and botched attempts at innovation. While some of the songs are fine, you get the sense that these arethe ones where The Drums aren’t really trying, and have instead reverted to their default style of hardly earth-shattering but occasionally pleasant surf and indie.

Where the absurd Magic Mountain is a flapping, landed carp of a track, praying for rigor mortis, I Hope Time Doesn’t Change Him is free from jittery histrionics and cut-and-paste structuring, and is all the better for it. The Drums are perfectly entitled to experiment, but Encyclopedia truly is a case study in the benefits of sticking to what you know.

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Words: Jon Clark