Friday, November 11, 2016

Album Review: The Droids - The Droids (2016)

This expansive 22-track self-titled set from the husband and wife duo collectively known as The Droids is one of my most loved name-your-price Bandcamp downloads of 2016. Not to be confused with the hard rocking Las Vegas covers band of the same name, nor indeed, the Seventies French space rock freaks, these guys are DIY home studio merchants from North Carolina … and I’m not even sure we can accurately label this collection an official album. The Droids make a variation on post-punk, or alt-rock as it’s probably called in their neck of the woods, with duelling synths enjoying pride of place alongside fuzzy guitars, a big drum sound, and solid vocal chops from Mrs Droid, who occasionally prompts recall of a prime-period Beth Ditto. Some of it can get a little familiar or same-y across the entire set – particularly that vocal – and if that’s a criticism, it’s one that could easily have been resolved by a more ruthless culling of what they’ve put online. But then, I guess, we’d potentially get less bang for our invisible buck and it seems somewhat churlish to moan about something offered free of charge. There’s at least one extremely good album in amongst this very generous download package, with the most obvious highlights for me being ‘Runaway’, and the instrumental ‘Divide By Zero’ … check it out below:


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