Percussion, synths and noise. The three instruments The Drood’s Daniel Watts performs. If the idea of performing noise appears incomprehensible – stop reading here. Otherwise, you’ll likely find this Denver band’s newest single ‘Hallow’ to be an enveloping and hypnotically satisfying freakout.
Denver has become a known breeding ground for abrasive music. And while The Drood are not the neolithic leviathan of a band like Primitive Man, they’re uncompromising all the same.
Formed over a decade ago, their music is infused with ‘80s industrial sonics while succeeding in avoiding facsimile. ‘Hallow’ is both oneiric and dynamic, threatening to lose listeners with its weirdness while retaining interest with its oddness.
The song is underpinned by its rhythm section that takes perhaps a little too long to establish. Still, once the centrally looping percussion has ossified into a hardwired cyclical whirlpool, elongated vocal phrases warp with demonic grandeur to great effect.
What accompanies this is a hallucinatorily fractured psychedelic trance. The atmosphere is brittle. The aesthetic is unsettling.
At times The Drood appear insular but they never completely eschew accessible songwriting. Repetitious vocal fragments could almost be repeated back upon listening, even if the result would be crude.
But then there’s that loaded term – repetitious. The Drood does somewhat fall victim to being creators of sounds that are interesting but minimally engaging beyond the introduction of their initial sound palette.
That does nothing to diminish the enjoyably wild music on display here. ‘Hallow’ is certainly strange enough to peak the interest of those curious to comprehend something this bewildering.