The Drones

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• Gareth Liddiard

2005's Wait Long by the River was the Drones' U.S. breakthrough, and that shit was ferocious. But the Australian quartet's humbucker scrawl and blues-fired howl has only grown louder with Havilah, their latest. It jabs another torch into the fissure where Gareth Liddiard gets his inkiest, most oil-soaked lyrical gems, the couplets that ignite in his throat as they hit boozy oxygen and a shower of sparks from an impact-spatter guitar riff. The Drones will return to the New York ATP Festival this September alongside fellow travelers Suicide and the Dirty Three, but why wait to have them piss down your throat? Your belly's burning now. With Emok, Midnight Peacocks, and Phantasm.
Thu., April 2, 8 p.m., 2009