The Drums: Portamento

My dad has this theory about how music repeats itself every 20 years. For the most part, I have to agree with him. The 90′s brought echoes of Led Zeppelin and The Doors. With the Aughts came slivers of inspiration from The Cars, New Order, and a myriad of one-hit-wonders.

Now we’re edging up on a rehash of the 90′s, and I’m pretty excited about what lies in store. This was the music I grew up listening to. It was the soundtrack to my adolescence. If the next few years bear inspiration from Nirvana, Pixies, old school Radiohead, and Nine Inch Nails, you won’t find me hemming and hawing about the similarities.

With Portamento, Brooklyn’s The Drums seem to be channeling the edgy precipice that indie music stood on in the very late 80′s/early 90′s. Still accessible enough to be on pop radio, but interesting enough to be a precursor for the flood of music to come in the next decade. If Morrisey and Brian Eno got together for coffee in 1988 and described what music would sound like in 2011, I think they would have sketched out this album.

It’s fantastic, and the theme on most songs alternates between falling in love, falling out of love, or some combination of the two. It makes for upbeat, cheery pop tunes that are as singable as they are danceable. Perfect Friday night ready to go out music. According to their Wikipedia page they almost split up this summer due to “stylistic differences”. Let’s hope that still isn’t a sore spot, because I think they’ve really tapped into something fantastic.

If you’re in Europe, you might be able to catch one of the last few shows of their current tour.

My favorite track off of this album is “What You Were”, about getting into a relationship you know isn’t going to end well, but doing it anyway:

Isn’t that something we can all relate to, regardless of the decade?

Posted from Houston, Texas, United States.