Havilah (album)

Havilah
The bottom third is a black-and-white shot of a lunar landscape, a small crater is in the foreground. A larger crater is near the horizon. The rest of the cover is black except for the lettering near the top. At left is the record label's logo of four letters. The artist's name in larger white block capitals is at top right. Below is a light blue line all the way across the cover. Under the line, on the right, is the title in grey block capitals.
Studio album by The Drones
Released 20 September 2008 (2008-09-20)
Recorded April 2008
Studio Running Creek,
Genre Punk blues, garage rock, folk rock, noise rock
Length 53:23
Label ATP/MGM
Producer
The Drones chronology
Live at the Annandale Hotel 18th, 19 October 2007
(2008)		 Havilah
(2008)		 A Thousand Mistakes
(2011)
Singles from Havilah
  1. "The Minotaur"
    Released: 29 July 2008

Havilah is the fifth studio album by Australian alternative rockers, the Drones, which was released by ATP Recordings/MGM Distribution in September 2008. It was co-produced by the group with Burke Reid and issued in February 2009 for the United Kingdom and United States markets. The title refers to a biblical town of the same name – "a Shangri-La-esque place with an abundance of gold" – and is the valley 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Myrtleford, where they recorded. The album debuted at No. 47 on the ARIA Albums Chart.

Background

Havilah was recorded in April 2008 by the Drones at the mud-brick home of their bass guitarist, Fiona Kitschin, and lead singer, Gareth Liddiard.[1][2] It is located 20 km east of Myrtleford at the base of Victoria's Mount Buffalo.[1] Liddiard reflected:

It's like a little world unto itself in the forest. It's a beautiful place. You can't always find a good spot to record, but if you can find a house like this that's a bonus.[3] It was a great place to write and record. We were literally in the middle of a sub-alpine forest. We had no electricity, just diesel generators. It'd be just about the only record made on a diesel budget.[2]

Dan Luscombe, the lead guitarist, explained its title, "Havilah is the name of the town where we recorded the album… our nearest neighbour was 4km away. In fact, this Victorian town was once a gold rush town populated with thousands of people just before the turn of the 20th century. It is now fitted out with about 30 people, and on this note, touches of Australian history are filling this album before we have even heard it."

The album was produced and engineered by Burke Reid (The Mess Hall, Gerling) who set up his portable ProTools studio, the Running Creek Studios, in their home, powered by a diesel engine.[1][2]

Content & Composition

The music on the album has been described as being influenced by "30 years of left-field rock heroics (the Birthday Party, Sonic Youth, the noisiest bits of Neil Young)"[4] as well as "fellow Aussies Nick Cave and The Triffids' late David McComb"[5]

To shake up his lyric writing, Liddiard was reading four books at once, and using internet packages to jumble words and create unimaginable phrases – similar to the labour intensive "cut up" techniques employed by writer William S. Burroughs and singer David Bowie in the pre-Internet era, where they cut up words on paper and jumbled them up:[6]

I made a conscious effort to put my head in the sand. You start working, you have a coffee in the morning, and any self-doubt falls away.

According to The Guardian, the lyrics on the album are "allegorical tales of Minotaurs, cargo cults and slow-creep apocalypse"[7] with many tracks dealing with topics such as "marital woes" ("The Drifting Housewife"[8]) and "emptiness" ("Careful As You Go")[9]

Release

The first single from the album, "The Minotaur", was released ahead of the album in July 2008.[10] Havilah debuted at No. 47 on the ARIA Albums Chart.[11] It was one of 12 nominees at the J Awards of 2008 for Album of the Year.[12]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[13]
Pitchfork(7.7/10) [14]
Sydney Morning Herald(positive)[15]
Tiny Mix Tapes[16]
The Guardian[17]
NME[18]
PopMatters[19]
Sputnikmusic[20]

The Age's Patrick Donovan observed, "the band's angry cacophony has partly given way to a cleaner, more upbeat sound with more melody and narrative-based songs... Elsewhere, the band's country influences come to the fore, as well as the cleaner playing of new guitarist Dan Luscombe... [they] may have mellowed a bit, but they're no less engaging."

Tom Hughes of The Guardian called it an "outstanding record, and one with endless pleasures and pains to be wrung out of it" calling Liddiard "one of the few rock lyricists worth paying real attention to" adding that "he's a vocalist like no other, [...] his melodic ear never better than here".[21] Tiny Mix Tapes called the album "more humblingly [sic] good music at a time when rock music is more about being it’s-all-been-done humble", bemoaning their lack of popularity and adding that theirs "is the sound you need to get for right now, and it’s built to last well past that."[22]. Dan Draper of PopMatters wrote that the album finds the band "older, more bitter, and better than ever" calling Liddiard "one of those lyricists whose words have the weight of poetry"[23] Ned Raggett of AllMusic rated it at four-out-of-five stars and explained, "[they] have grown a touch more polished and focused with time, it's not at the expense of creating compelling music – if anything, [this album] even more clearly places the band as one of Australia's best rock bands ever."[13] Joe Colly of Pitchfork writes that "They're traditional in the way Black Lips are-- straightforward instrumentation, a healthy nod to the past-- but manage to dodge the pitfalls of revisionism with an unusual mixture of brute force, bleak lyrical content, and singer Gareth Liddiard's distinctive caterwaul. (Dude can impressively shift from a bark to a shriek to a roar in one solitary breath.) [...Listening to the album] is like making it through a powerful-but-disturbing film"[24]. Sputnikmusic, in their positive review of the album ("Gloriously loud and perhaps even a little more restrained [...] yet another great, dynamic record from the Drones"), called the band "one of the most talented acts currently playing rock music."[25]

More mixed reviews came from Q who said it was a "little too heavily indebted to fellow Aussies Nick Cave and The Triffids' late David McComb, even if that's not a bad place to be coming form."[26] Prefix magazine described it as "thickset blues rock" that "makes for opaque and impenetrable listening" decrying their perceived lack of innovation (in comparison to acts such as Women and Abe Vigoda) and their inability to "wallow in the same gloriously gloomy lows as, say, Come’s Eleven:Eleven or Neil Young’s On the Beach" comparing the music to the "mid level depress-o-rock that the Smashing Pumpkins have been peddling on-and-off for the best part of two decades" and criticizing Liddiard's lyrics as "too often uninspired, and seemingly torn from a notebook full of juvenilia that should have been stuffed in the back of a firmly locked closet" despite being "witty" at parts[27]

On Metacritic, the album has a "metascore" of 77 based on 15 reviews, implying a "generally favorable" critical reception.[28]

Track listing

All tracks written by Gareth Liddiard, Mike Noga, Dan Luscombe and Fiona Kitschin,[29] unless otherwise noted.

Havilah Australian release (ATPRCD31)
No.TitleLength
1."Nail It Down"6:53
2."The Minotaur"3:25
3."Drifting Housewife"4:01
4."I Am the Supercargo" (Liddiard, Luscombe)6:20
5."Careful as You Go" (Liddiard, Luscombe, Kitschin)5:02
6."Oh My"4:43
7."Cold and Sober" (Liddiard)5:05
8."Luck in Odd Numbers"8:36
9."Penumbra" (Liddiard)3:53
10."Your Acting's Like the End of the World"5:21


Personnel

The Drones
  • Fiona Kitschin – bass guitar, backing vocals
  • Gareth Liddiard – guitar, lead vocals
  • Dan Luscombe – guitar, piano, melodica, backing vocals
  • Mike Noga – drums, percussion, backing vocals
Recording details
  • Burke Reid, the Drones – producer at Running Creek Studios, Havilah, Victoria
  • Bruce Reid – audio engineer
  • Ross Cockle – mastering engineer

References

  1. 1 2 3 Donovan, Patrick (26 September 2008). "A country harvest". The Age. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 DemonAndrew (15 September 2008). "The Drones". FasterLouder. The Sound Alliance. Archived from the original on 13 August 2011. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  3. ↑ "Havilah album news". ATP Recordings. Retrieved 2008-09-30.
  4. ↑
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ Ryan, Peter. "The Drones Triumph". Music Australia Guide. Archived from the original on 7 May 2009. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
  7. ↑
  8. ↑
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ "The Drones New Single – The Minotaur". Hot Source. 10 July 2008. Archived from the original on 30 December 2012. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
  11. ↑ Hung, Steffen. "Discography The Drones". Australian Charts Portal. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  12. ↑ "J Awards – 2008 Nominations". Triple J (Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)). Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  13. 1 2 "Havilah – The Drones Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  14. ↑
  15. ↑ Zuel, Bernard (26 September 2008). "Havilah". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  16. ↑
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  27. ↑
  28. ↑
  29. ↑ "'Nail It Down' at APRA search engine". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA). Retrieved 30 April 2018. Note: For additional work user may have to select 'Search again' and then 'Enter a title:' &/or 'Performer:'
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