Review Summary: Without a doubt, you will be hearing about this band in the near future.
sum•mer
n.
1. The usually warmest season of the year, occurring between spring and autumn and constituting June, July, and August in the Northern Hemisphere, or, as calculated astronomically, extending from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox.
2. A period of fruition, fulfillment, happiness, or beauty.
Behind their ridiculously random band name and the not-so-subtle debut album name, The Drums’ album
“Sumertime!” hold the key to a magnificent blend of indie/pop/surf music to either bring the summer warmth closer to your heart or cure your wintertime blues. The album takes a subject, obviously summer, and weaves it into seven tracks, hardly even an album at all. Many musicians have attempted to encase the feeling of summer in their music before, but most fail even with thirteen songs, but the youngsters Jonathan Pierce (The Singin'), Jacob Graham (The Stringin'), Adam Kessler (The Twangin'), Connor Hanwick (The Bangin'), spawning from New York City managed to do it magnificently, with just a few bumps on the way.
The opening track, “Saddest Summer” tackles their topic of choice at full force with a wave of decent pop. The song uses its light and upbeat instrumentals to introduce the album, or even the band themselves. The lyrics to are light and frothy, oddly while singing about hating and the ‘saddest summer ever.’ The song ends with the sound of fireworks plucking up the listener from their seat and transporting them to a night on an East Coast beach with fireworks bursting in the sky. The following track, “Let’s Go Surfing” uses the bands surf music flair to its full potential with quick rising then falling guitar and whistling over relaxed vocals singing of just plain waking up happy and going out to explore the day. While these two tracks are excellent, the band does not reach their full potential until the track, “Don’t Be a Jerk, Jonny.” This song is still upbeat, but slower, drawing obvious inspiration from The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.” Here Pierce sings about a Jenny and Jonny (himself) and their rollercoaster summer relationship, in the chorus a girls vocals are added which gives the song a lift to become the obvious standout compared to the previous tracks that are unfortunately really boring in comparison.
The relationship and love vibe continues in the following song, “Submarine,” but this time in a negative way. This song is about the previously mentioned Jonny breaking up with Jenny. This song tries to revive the masterfulness of “Don’t Be a Jerk, Jonny” but it clearly cannot match up with it and the two tracks, although two parts of the same story, fit together really awkwardly and “Submarine” relies too much the previous for its own good. The next song, “Down by the Water” on the other hand stands on its own wonderfully. Being the most low tempo song on an album it naturally draws attention and in this case the powerful vocals singing about late summer nights works very well with the lack of instrumentation.
If the point has not already been made, The Drums are good. They are really good, that fact is undeniably.
”Summertime!” is an obvious example that they know how to take a message or concept and convey it with excellent music. While their debut is not a perfect piece, it shows mind-blowing talents from a relatively unknown band.
