Live Review: The Drones, Batpiss

Melbourne trio Batpiss take the stage as The Triffid's confines rapidly start to fill, opening with a wash of dissonant noise before the drums pummel into life and things quickly start to get real. Manic-looking bass player Thomy Sloane lends his gruff vocals first but soon he's trading words with guitarist Paul Pirie, both spitting dark lyrics with complete conviction. Musically it's all dark and discordant — a sludgy mix of punk, metal and doom — and the overall vibe is kinda bleak and 'end of days', but everything they touch possesses a certain dark majesty. Their set is driving and unrelenting, they certainly know their way around an ominous groove, and the end result is one primal and powerful offering to kick things into action. 

After a brief break fellow Melburnians The Drones enter that fray, guitarist Dan Luscombe explaining that if you're keen to heckle frontman Gareth Liddiard then tonight's your night because he's lost his voice and won't be able to mount a comeback. Liddiard looks sheepish but keeps quiet, this anniversary tour to celebrate a decade's passing since they released their epic second album Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By has clearly taken a toll, but when the band kick into action with the album's killer opening track Shark Fin Blues his gruff, expressive voice still has plenty left in the tank. It's strange hearing this immense song opening the set, it's not usually used as an opening gambit like this in the live realm, but regardless it lacks none of its visceral menace or power. Prodigal drummer Christian Strybosch has slotted back into the line-up like he never left and locks in perfectly with rhythm cohort Fiona Kitschin early on during Baby², and the pristine sound in this room allows you to hear plenty of nuance as Liddiard unleashes a long strangled guitar intro before the brooding The Best You Can Believe In sputters into life. These intense songs remain routinely timeless and vital, the pain wracked Locust beginning all sparse and emotive before building into a mind-blowing crescendo, the band meandering through ad hoc arrangements and seeming to stay in sync via osmosis or some other dark art. Things get all ominous and creepy as a huge instrumental squall ushers in the unbridled sentimentality of This Time before they move on to the gloomy Sitting On The Edge Of The Bed Cryin'. By this stage, despite having offered only six of Wait Long...'s nine tracks, they move briefly onto the remainder of their fine catalogue, throwing in brand new track Private Execution (from their impending seventh album) and then segueing into old faithful The Miller's Daughter, twisting and writing and contorting the song into another intense tsunami of noise. They ride it out together, all five of them caught in the moment, until it suddenly begins to wind down and then it's done and we're embraced by the silence, the band members sharing a knowing look and wandering off without a word as the crowd struggle to make sense of what just happened. It dawns that the set proper is done with and the sudden frenzy of noise draws the band out for one more song, a massive and intense reading of Kev Carmody's River Of Tears — which they long ago made their own — and as this final dalliance dies down we wander out thinking how perfectly appropriate it is to end such a great set with a Queensland song, even if topically it isn't perhaps one we should be all that proud of.