Drinks – “Hermits on Holiday”

“Dad, I don’t feel so good.”

I am a bad father. I took the kids on a leisurely summer drive and played the advance of Drinks‘ debut album, Holiday for Hermits, on the car stereo. The weather was rather fair for this time of the year, and I hit the curves of the road under the speed limit — honestly! Still, the eep-ork melodies, stop-start tempos, flat-affect vocals, and staccato guitar proved too much for my 9-year-old daughter, who informed everyone she was getting sick. I now see that I’ve failed to socialize my children properly into the pleasures of twee noise-pop.

Drinks are a Welsh-U.S. duo comprised of Cate Le Bon and Tim Presley, the dude from White Fence. I’ll leave it to aficionados of the latter to assess just how far astray this new outfit has wandered from White Fence territory. Suffice it to say, Drinks don’t sound like a side project, so forceful is the presence of Le Bon, as heard on the song “Hermits on Holiday.” The album goes even deeper into the weird than this — thus my daughter’s carsickness — but when Drinks finally let their collective hair down and give in to the joys of a repetitious jam (ahem… “jam”) like “Spilt the Beans,” the results are mildly glorious.

Hermits on Holiday comes out August 21 on Birth Records

DRINKS ON TOUR:
8/31 – Paris, FR – Mecanique Ondulataire
9/1 – Cologne, DE – King Georg
9/2 – Amsterdam, NL – OT301
9/5 – Salisbury, UK – Larmer Tree Gardens (End Of The Road)
9/6 – Portmeirion, UK – Festival No.6
9/8 – Glasgow, UK – CCA
9/9 – Manchester, UK – Soup Kitchen
9/10 – London, UK – Lexington
9/11 – Brighton, UK – The Hope
9/12 – London, UK – On Blackheath
10/10 – Brooklyn NY – Baby’s All Right
10/18 – Portsmouth, NH – 3S Artspace
10/19 – Cambridge, MA – Middle East Upstairs
10/20 – Montreal, QU – Bar Le Ritz PDB
10/21 – Toronto, ON – The Garrison
10/22 – Cleveland, OH – Happy Dog
10/23 – Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
10/24 – Detroit, MI – Lager House
11/5 – Los Angeles, CA – The Echo
11/6 – San Diego, CA – Soda Bar
11/7 – San Francisco – Rickshaw Stop