The world of music is fascinating. With any art form, mediocrity abounds while the special talent has the propensity for getting over looked. I wanted to write the post punk art deco band from Leeds, Drahla, but the review wasn’t flowing. The draft has been in it’s undone stage for almost two months. I did see they were touring but intermittently. It was quoted that the band is so “busy touring”. When I looked up their schedule just now on Tuesday, 6/11, they had 6 gigs booked until the end of the year. Wow 1 gig a month constitutes touring? I guess the bands that are gigging almost weekly better refer to their time on the road as SUPER MONSTER TOURS. 6 dates until the end of the year does NOT constitute a tour.
They call themselves Drahla. I call them pretentious art school flunkies who stole from the likes of Delia Derbyshire and the Ramones. Delia’s sound collages waft in their apocolypitc style video for one of their over the edge too cool for school meanderings. Delia was the real deal. She crafted her own style of sound design. I feel Delia would drink this band under the table both in booze and musical knowledge. In homage to the Ramones, they do keep their songs quick and tight with radical stops. Yet unlike a true punk band that has something radical to say, Drahla is just spewing subterfuge like lyrical barf. I honestly liked them the first few listens. They are female fronted which has been my least favorite band to cover. I don’t know why. I think because I was spoiled by the likes of Indie queens like Natalie Merchant and Edie Brickell. Natalie ripped social inequities, was not known for love songs, and danced like a goddess. Oh she put out some damn fine videos. Edie jumped on table one night in Texas and became the front woman of the New Bohemians. She’s got the hair, the smile and the style.
Drahla’s Lucille is lovely but smiling doesn’t seem her strong point. She doesn’t even snarl. She just stands with a dank stare under a Dylanesque hat. The photos are obviously painstakingly posed. I don’t see her leaping onto any tables. But that is Drahla’s snobbish ambiance. I say they are an acquired taste. Robert Smith of the Cure, arrogant as he is, might not go for them. To be fair, their dark mercurial black magic rage settled into my auditory system quickly. The lingering saxophone with the ricochet guitar playing drew me in. I will not fault their musical prowess. All the band members play with panache. Too much actually. I realized they were like mannequins with picks. The staccato vocals deftly a decibel under a scream rip the 2 and a half minute songs. “Stimulus for Living” does have a message albeit buried under a conceited haze. I have to say the video for “Pyramid Estate” intrigued as it felt like a trip to the Egyptian room of a history museum
But like a 3rd Tinder date, the true colors or lack thereof came out and my ghosting occurred. I started a piece on the 3 piece band but couldn’t get it to flow. I have no need for pretense in my musical library that is overflowing with humble bands that rock my cold heart. To end, I was speaking with the sound mechanic for a well-known band that puts on raucous shows and imparts positive messages. I said “Isn’t it funny how the mediocre bands think they are all that and the really good ones will ask a music writer (moi) to come back stage and do a shot.” He nodded shook his long curly hair “Fucking tell me about it”. Cheers.
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