Freshly revealed to my ears, thanx to Garrett (guit/voc), this quatuor from Arizona really deserves your interest if you like it extremely heavy, weedy and crusty... but not only ;)
Basically Stoner on their first effort "demo 2008", the band, after some line-up changes, evoluted towards something more crude and filthy with their split album shared with TOAD and then even further last year with their excellent "Everybody Dies Alone"...
The Sleepian type of riffage is still present but the coming of a new rythmic section and the addition of a 2nd vocalist have helped to create something thicker, more diversified, from Stoner to crusty Black Metal not forgetting raw doomed punk; all in all far more original while still being very homogeneous.
I'm really stoked by their sound, heady and dirty, regularly nicely melodic; one song can deliver some top notch Sleep/Electric Wizard vibes , then another turn into some Darkthronish blackened crusty moods and finally end on a melodic and sharp metallized soloing. There's 12 songs here but hundreds ideas, killer breaks, winks (especially an oustanding one to Al Cisneros in "fatal rips..."), it turns out to be a kind of magical cauldron in perpetual fusion !
What is rather exceptionnal is the way things are blended, nested into each other, it is very tightly composed and played, far more rich than a bunch of other more recognized bands... The viciousness and violence tones are enhanced by both vocals styles, mostly sludgy and punkish but evilized too ("fatal rips from the north" or "stone dome", just enough, no norwegian clowning); listen the live video beside to make your opinion, the performance on this particular point is brillantly crushing !!!
And now ... what else ? what's next on the programm for DRONE THRONE ? Will the band remain unpredictable ??? Yes !!! but sadly far more than what could be expected, as the band broke up since then :(
A very bad news for sure, but that shoudln't prevent you at all to check out their awesome sound and considering the guys are pretty young, they still have lots of time to reform someday and even if not, I'm sure some of them will shortly start another cool project that will finally find a more golden destiny !!!
Enthusiast like someone who discovers a great hidden gem (I didn't knew at all they splited up), I asked a few questions to Garrett who kindly answered and delivered here in fact a kind of short summary of their too brief history...
Garrett, your style is pretty original, from Stoner to crusty doomed punk... How did your sound evolve from the 2008 demo who is mainly Stoner to the 2010 "everybody dies alone" which is generally filthier with shorter songs, more Crust/punk elements and even a bit of Blackened riffage à la Darkthrone or 80’s metal/thrash riffs ?
Yes, our 2008 demo and "Everybody Dies Alone" are very different but between these two albums we went through a few lineup changes and aside from the changes in members, I also did not want every album we put out to sound exaactly the same. I really love our 2008 demo, but I suppose I wanted our full length to be a bit more aggressive in nature. You see, I have been in punk and hardcore bands for many years and I suppose my heart is really with fast/aggressive music. I also do vocals for a local thrash/hardcore band called Prosthetics, (you can download our music for free at http://prosthetics.bandcamp.com/). Needless to say, I guess I wanted our punk/crust influences to show a little more in our music. Also, when we were recording the new material, we kept them short for the possibility of maybe finding a band that wanted to doa split 7". We figured we should have a few short songs in case we can get a 7" out.
Drone Throne is comprised of other Arizona bands such as: Prosthetics, Sihr, Hell Prayer, Contact Yourself, and TOAD.
How can we find all your material and on which formats are they respectively available ?
You can find our music on all different types of format. You can get a hold of our demo on cassette/cd, you can find our split with TOAD on vinyl, and you can get Everybody Dies Alone on CD-R. For anybody who is trying to get a physical copy of our music you can do so by contacting Boue Records in France. Seba at Boue records does a lot of distributing for us and also put out our split with TOAD.
Why do you consider "everybody dies alone" as “your 3rd album but only 1st full length”...?
I guess one reason we consider Everybody Dies Alone our 3rd album is because our demo was actually released as an actual album on Boue records and is considered as less of a demo and more of an album for Drone Throne. Shortly after putting out Everybody Dies Alone last summer, we went on a U.S. tour and played with a few acts such as Eagle Twin, Landmine Marathon, Haarp, Aseethe, Humilitate and others. We played a final show when we got home and broke up. I hope the fact that Drone Throne is now broken up will not make you to no longer want to review Drone Throne.
What about past and future gigs ? Is your audience comprised of different styles of people stonerheads, punks, sludge ?
Drone Throne played many different types of shows. I suppose that is also a reason that our music developed into a more punk/black metal/ crust band toward the end. I wanted our music to be universal and since I have been involved in the punk scene for many years, I have more experience with booking punk shows and more contacts in the U.S. that book punk. Drone Throne played some very doomy shows while at the same time playing some d-beat, crust, or hardcore shows. Drone Throne played with such bands as Nerveskade, Black Skies, Black Tusk, Dark Castle, Zoroaster, Deviated Instinct, Cough, Red Fang, Atriarch, Hell Bastard, and many many more. I feel that our collection of styles made it possible for us to play so many diverse shows.
How do you guys share the vocals ?
Much of our shared vocals is due to the fact that all the members in Drone Throne has been a vocalist in another band at some point. Our guitarist Alex and our bassist Andy are both in TOAD and do vocals in that band and our drummer Taylor is a vocalist in the local screamo band Contact Yourself (Rip), so I guess it was just natural to have us all do vocals on the recording. We try to also keep that way during live shows.
Here is a video from our tour of us playing with Haarp in New Orleans:
Thanx Garrett !
If anyone wants to get a hold of a physical form of our music, please contact Boue records. Or you can contact TOAD to get a copy of the Drone Throne/TOAD split. otherwise, just download all of our music at our bandcamp.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Drone-Throne/114187578611857
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Boue-Records/195388500502888
Cool cool. I'm gonna check this out for sure.
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