Drone

Some days you wake up feeling easier and simple, some others everything needs three rolls of analysis before starting to decode reality. Well, today I’m on the first one. I’m not into shredding music genres today. This is rock.

Drone is a Danish band that recently moved to Germany to continue their mission to conquer their universe. Last December they released Doors Of Perception, an album with fourteen songs that explore deep into rock. This was the first impression I got from Doors Of Perception, these guys are diving into their own sound, exploring their own ground, and possibilities through rock. Honestly, I have no idea how to explain how I heard this in the album, I could dissect the experience and the feeling to explain it to you more clear, but, well, no, I won’t. Let’s be simple. Rock mode.

Drone singer and guitar player, Rasmus Sjøgren, has an attractive voice, I like a lot his tone, to me seems easy to connect with his intention behind the words, when he is yelling I want to be loud too, and when he is low I want to melt in the shadows of the song. It’s not a wide range voice, but it fits great in this music. The drums by Rasmus Cederlund are strong and deep, he brings metal to the surface, making the songs shine. His changes and breaks hook me in their trip, turning the moments from ordinary to epic. The strings, including the bass by Morten Nygaard, build a melodic ground, and the drums with its textures create the bigger landscape with huge rock mountains.

Though “Divide and Conquer” is a great song, and it’s introduced as the single of the album, to me the trilogy of “Elysian Peasant”, “Elysian Vision”, and “Intuition”, coming in line, all together, are the epic moment of Doors Of Perceptions, heavy, consistent, wide, and full. When they end, I want to go back and play them again, and again. But I don’t (not all the time), the second half of Doors Of Perception is fresh, and “My Own” develops the album in an operatic way, and with “The Minx”, and “Turmoil” create a next act that is as powerful as the one before. “The Minx” actually brings up new sounds with the strings, and additional machines. After “Turmoil” the air is full with rock, and still I want more. Rock, of course.

Doors Of Perception is bold daring the fear of pettiness, and it’s smart keeping its sound in lands that Drone can handle well still. As a the second album of the band it does show maturity in the knowledge of themselves, and it brings up questions about the evolution of the band, their sound seems to be wanting to develop to explore and conquer more lands, not only Germany, and China probably, but also the abstract lands of music. After all, music must be adventurous. Specially rock. - Layabozi

They open strong with the first measures of the song Antic Disposition. The first song on the album and it is rough, edgy, dark rock and roll- full of anger and bitterness. I sit up and look at the computer screen and my eyes widen. These guys sent me an email out of the blue and asked me to review their new album, Doors of Perception. They asked me ? WTF! I should be begging them to read my review. Antic Disposition is a great song. I am stunned at how great.

Remember their name. Remember their name because it’s like those pilotless planes that carry hellfire missiles and blow you away before you can put your Toyota Truck into drive. DRONE. DRONE. DRONE. THIS IS DRONE and they are the very best heavy prog band of the 21st century.

There are only 324 people following them on Facebook? Are you friggin’ kidding me? They must be the most intelligent 324 in the entire world. I will say this again so you can read it again and maybe maybe comprehend what I am trying to tell you: DRONE is the very best heavy prog band of the 21st century. I know this after one song. Talent of this caliber does not fade.

Oh fuck. The second song starts with a speech

“Society is a vast conspiracy to make us a single self
and to escape this self we must somehow become
detached from all those habits and values and attitudes that
society has encrusted us in”

And the Axe comes roaring in with a great progression right on top of the speech , a heavy slam over top of the words, and I’m already so fucking sold on this band….I mean, WTF! TOOL should be envious because this is DRONE and they are no apprentice.
The album is called Doors of Perception and was created by a three man Danish Prog band. I swear to God I’m flying to Denmark to see this band play LIVE.

“Take your cash up your ass” – Cassandra Syndrome, DRONE

I feel like the guy who found the Hope Diamond. I want to scream. I want to dance, I want to laugh in hysterics. Where do I even begin to describe how powerful, astute, and perfectly absorbing DRONE’s music is? Track Three begins with more spoken word…the song is entitled Cassandra Syndrome and some guy is talking about his store and I’m like..what the hell, why does this fit in perfect with the groove? I’m losing myself in this…it’s a hard Prog Rock brainwash. I will write their name down again for you: DRONE I will also write this word: EPIC

Track 4 is Carmen Vernale and it has a wicked groove and the baritone vocals are Earth Shattering- Im not kidding you..this album is DAUGHTRY on Mescaline. This is Creed, Tool, NIN and Porcupine Tree, stirred together, boiled and poured over your confused Schism-starved brain. This is Shinedown meets The Pineapple Thief. This is DRONE and they are the very best heavy prog band of the 21st century.

They rock hard, they send a message, their music reflects the madness in our society, the futility of our empty lives- under the control, always under the control of our Corporate puppet masters..

“Open up my vein to life
while your doing what you will” - from the song Intuition


Rasmus Sjøgren
The broken staccato vocals that match the beat on Turmoil, with harmonies up a third, and then a fifth is captivating, it’s a supremely clever arrangement..it FEELS like TURMOIL! The lyrics are straight-forward, simple.. yet the words race at you through the music. I already know that by the tenth time you are spinning TURMOIL you will be singing along to every word, shouting out every note. Then you will go to their concert and we will all sing TURMOIL together, fists raised high to the beat…first it will be a few hundred fans….then a few thousand fans….and then DRONE will fill the sports stadiums, I PROMISE YOU they will fill the stadiums..and we will all be as one…the music of DRONE surging through our shattered souls.

Every song…is better than the song before…there is no let down, no filler song to bring the album down. DRONE is too good for that. This album is arranged to elevate you, produced to watch you, watch you. God damn Minx. This is DRONE.

As I write the songs fly past with a venom. Singer/guitarist/ songwriter Rasmus Sjøgren is now telling a dark tale on Elevate Freedom.

Who cares if I’m not first. Who cares if am not
Who cares if I’m not first. Who cares if am not (like you)


Rasmus Cederlund
This fascinating story unfolds and there is evil within it..at its center, its core..it follows you with every note, attacking with a vengence. More bold words jump out at you:

Unless I bring out the things God wished me to conceal,
she will show me how this can come so far down – come down, come down, come down, come down, come down, come down.
“The Ladies Live From His Palm – His Foe Levels”
And down we flow. To the underworld where the dragon flies and green traces of acid lie on the ground

DRONE is heroin, DRONE is Steven Wilson in chains, DRONE is Syd Barrett before they took his Floyd toy away. DRONE IS THE 21ST CENTURY SCHIZOID MAN

The song becomes a gentle, tender symphonic concerto, the violins rising and falling...who cares, who cares...this music, this remarkable band, this DRONE has hooked me.

And so we come to the final track, Garmonbozi where DRONE ties it all together..the speech, I know this speech


Morten Nygaard
from somewhere, a movie, wan’t this a movie? It is long, way too long, yet not long enough…the music is like a suffering, a painful foreboding- an adult discovering he is now and forever stripped of his childhood innocence . DRONE is a reckoning. Kurt Cobain is watching from a perch high above us, and the music is twisted and burnt..a scorched Blackfield. I read the lyrics and laugh- they have brought it all together, DRONE is repeating key sentences from earlier songs, and then they have the audacity, the self-awareness to write THIS:

What if my songs will hit you
you can´t control this they´re timeless
and when their essence one day will seize you
It will please me.

The music ends and the silence in the studio is oppressive, the weight of the air lays upon my shoulders.

And I am suffocating on the silence. - Rick Dante

Drone is a progressive rock band from Aarhus, Denmark.
The music takes roots in bands like early Genesis, King Crimson, Porcupine Tree, Tool and Nirvana.
It can be characterized as innovative poprock: accessible but without squandering standard clichŽs. - Hasna Eggers