On Gala Mill (ATP), the fourth full-length from Australia’s DRONES, the tunes move at a patient crawl, buffeted by a storm-tossed sea of seething guitar, their Crazy Horse howl only occasionally quieting to let through a sliver of delicate folk rock. But no matter how punishingly noisy or molasses slow they get, they never feel murky or sluggish; the band creates tension and urgency with a keen melodic sense and cunning deployment of sonic space. And front man Gareth Liddiard sings in a poetic wail that suggests he’s survived on a steady diet of top-shelf Australian rock–it’s like a cross between the tortured croon of Nick Cave and the psychotic harangues of the Scientists’ Kim Salmon. Not to damn them with faint praise, but the Drones are the best rock band I’ve heard from down under since the Dirty Three. –Peter Margasak
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The Australian trio the DEVASTATIONS, now based in Berlin, scored a testimonial sticker from Karen O on the cover of their debut, Coal (Brassland), where she calls the record the best thing she’s heard all year. The music is smoky, tremulous cabaret of the Bad Seeds variety, though front man Conrad Standish sounds less like Nick Cave and more like Stuart Staples of Tindersticks–except maybe when he’s drily dropping inky black lyrics like “My mother / She was a whore.” –Jessica Hopper
