DROPBUNNY
Whether you’ve just had one of those days at work or those students downstairs just won’t stop having all-night raves in the middle of the week (you know who you are), sometimes you just need to decompress in the most explosive way possible. Enter: dropbunny. If there’s one thing that they’re not doing, it’s fecking about. The one negative to the album is that they decided to include the lyrics in the album sleeve, so they do come across as whiney and moany (and, for the record, if you’re not a fan of swearing then maybe give this one a miss, they love a good swear) but, if we ignore that, this is actually a nice little album they’ve cobbled together. On first listen it does come across as a bit of an aural assault but, once it’s had a bit of time to percolate, there’s a lot going on here musically that’s worth the effort and it’s more coherent than the first impressions might suggest. It’s all over the place, but in a good way. Just as you think you know where you stand, they mix things up and throw in a nice-sounding acoustic song. Isn’t that nice? For a bit anyway, then it descends into some sort of eclectic, electric… thing.
Although as an entity it’s pretty avant garde, there is still that something that hooks you in and doesn’t just leave you feeling lost. It’s definitely got a high level of aggression but somehow doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve been shouted at full on in the face for 70 minutes. The press sheet says that they’d not long taken on three “exceptionally talented singers”, a fact which I do not doubt at all but they don’t seem to be using them to their full potential or are drowning them out. As it happens, I quite like the vocals on the album but they are a bit one-dimensional at times and, although they have tried to mix up the clean with the screams, I imagine it could start to get a bit annoying if you didn’t particularly love that one style of vocals in the first place.
For me, the album gets off to a very good start but then starts to tail off, or I got bored, or hungry. Either way, it’s not a good sign really. I’m not against long-ish albums at all but it sort of needs to be justified in some respect and, in this case, they probably could have chopped a good 15-20 minutes out and not lost anything really or, indeed, made two very nice mini-albums just to break it up a bit. There’s a lot to take in but, on the whole, it is worth the perseverance. There are some people who will take to the album straight away and want to listen to it on repeat for the rest of their lives, more power to them, I’m not that person as I do have admiration for what they’ve created but find it a bit full-on for something to listen to in one go.
Although as an entity it’s pretty avant garde, there is still that something that hooks you in and doesn’t just leave you feeling lost. It’s definitely got a high level of aggression but somehow doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve been shouted at full on in the face for 70 minutes. The press sheet says that they’d not long taken on three “exceptionally talented singers”, a fact which I do not doubt at all but they don’t seem to be using them to their full potential or are drowning them out. As it happens, I quite like the vocals on the album but they are a bit one-dimensional at times and, although they have tried to mix up the clean with the screams, I imagine it could start to get a bit annoying if you didn’t particularly love that one style of vocals in the first place.
For me, the album gets off to a very good start but then starts to tail off, or I got bored, or hungry. Either way, it’s not a good sign really. I’m not against long-ish albums at all but it sort of needs to be justified in some respect and, in this case, they probably could have chopped a good 15-20 minutes out and not lost anything really or, indeed, made two very nice mini-albums just to break it up a bit. There’s a lot to take in but, on the whole, it is worth the perseverance. There are some people who will take to the album straight away and want to listen to it on repeat for the rest of their lives, more power to them, I’m not that person as I do have admiration for what they’ve created but find it a bit full-on for something to listen to in one go.
LABEL:
FORMAT:
Self-released
Album
IO
Review by Siân Williams
RUNNING TIME:
-
RELEASE DATE:
6th August 2012
TRACK LISTING
1) Plummet; 2) Irredeemably Fucked; 3) CDFA; 4) Portrait of a Young Man as a Shithead; 5) The Nightmare From Which You Cannot Awaken; 6) Another Lost Kid; 7) Exit Sub; 8) Hits Limbo From A Great Height; 9) This Relentless Momentum; 10) Jumped; 11) Gimpman Cometh; 12) Beat; 13) Pentagonal Plywood Prison; 14) Arch; 15) Inchoate; 16) The Architecture is Wrong; 17) Voices; 18) There's Nothing Here and it Screams
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
Australia
"Although as an entity it’s pretty avant garde, there is still that something that hooks you in and doesn’t just leave you feeling lost."
