“Just over a decade ago, The Drums were a very different prospect. They were primed to be a new generation of indie-kids’ Beach Boys, their songs mainly hitting the coast with your pals clad in striped shirts. The band’s self-titled 2010 debut came good on the promise, landing somewhere between Orange Juice and The Cure’s most exhilarating moments. Follow-ups like 2011’s ‘Portamento’ and 2013’s ‘En”
“The latest album from the Drums—now just frontman Jonny Pierce—is his most honest and most unvarnished.”
“Brutalism is an album as petty as a suburban grudge and as cruel as a college prank. Frontman and last-man-standing Jonny Pierce has abandoned all pretense of the Morrissey-esque cleverness that let him get away with otherwise insulting lyrics on Abysmal Thoughts to make an album that is unrelentingly unpleasant. We can all appreciate a fuck-off to a bad fuck, but the folky, painfully catchy “626”
