Mellowdrone
Angry Bear
Coming Home Records
Mellowdrone is a name you may not have heard of, but you probably have heard their music on the TV shows Six Feet Under and Cane. If not those shows, then you may have heard them on Nissan commercials or as the owners of the theme song to Project Runway. Now, the band formerly signed to Columbia Records is on their own and on their latest, Angry Bear, they have a less glossy sound, but it is still rock solid.
“Alone=In Your Face” sounds like they took to the lyrics to a Joy Division or a Smiths song and added happy pills to the music. The instrumentation is upbeat, but lyrics like “You’re never alone/ Cause I’m always with you/ Until you say so,” give a completely contradictory feel to the song. The clash of emotion makes this one of the best songs on the album.
“Sugar” is a heavy guitar-driven rocker that has a distinctly fuzzy low-budget quality to it. Much of the album has this D.I.Y. feel as most of it was recorded in friends’ houses. Vocalist Jon Bates’ baritone is at its resonating best, especially on “Lady in Her Underwear” and the opener “Wherever You May Go.”
Angry Bear has Mellowdrone playing with a little more abandon and recording the cuts with more rough edges. Take away the big producers and the big record company and you get a band that is proving why they were signed to a major label deal to begin with.
Mellowdrone: http://www.mellowdrone.com
