Mellowdrone half returns
Mellowdrone
Box
(Red Ink/Columbia)
Mellowdrone’s name sticks out in the IE office because of a valiant opening gig for Johnny Marr at Double Door a couple years ago and the subsequent littering of our floors with their EP by the now-defunct Artist Direct label.
The news of this full-length, three years later comes with a troubling quote from frontman Jonathan Bates, who says in the accompanying press kit, “For me a song is never really done” while championing a “compulsive streak.” Ahem, Johnny? Three of the EP’s tracks are included on Box in their three-year-old state and, even worse, they’re still his best songs. While “Fashionably Uninvited” and “And Repeat” continue to seethe, the rest of Box feels oddly unfinished. Synth arrangements on everything from “C’mon Try A Little Bit” to “Orange Marmalade” sound like demos, or ideas unrealized. Where those six-song discs were unpredictable, now he’s lazily formulaic in his shoegazing.
— Steve Forstneger
