DROWNERS RETURN WITH NEW SINGLE 'CRUEL WAYS'

Can you hear that? Can you feel that? That's Drowners' new track 'Cruel Ways' and at the same time the first taste of the new record 'On Desire' which is due to release June 24 of 2016.

The last time I have first listened to a song and kept it on replay the  e n t i r e  day was about 7 years ago, but with this song I can not help to put it down.

It was more than 2 years ago that Drowners released their self-titled debut album, and impressed with their guitar driven post-punk melodies. This album, may I add, has been one of my all time favorite albums to this day. People refered to them as a younger version of The Strokes or The Cure, but they always had this something that made Drowners' sound so hard to compare to any other band's out there. With this own unique touch to it, the band quickly grew a strong fanbase of alternative music lovers.

After a long wait and multiple of photos of the band working in the studio, Drowners posted a short teaser of a new track to their twitter about two weeks ago, and today we finally found out more about what they've been working on.

@DROWNERSBAND on twitter

With track 'Cruel Ways' Drowners stayed true to what's always been typical for their sound: guitar riffs that you quickly fall in love with and can't get out of your head. Surprisingly the vocals are more dominating than ever, framing the whole thing differently. But there's more to this song. It's not simply another "Luv Hold Me Down" (Single from album 1). This album itself - won't be another seltitled. For this, let us just have a quick look at the tracklist to the new album, which includes 10 songs of the NYC formed band.

Only 10? But the first album had at least 12, and if you count the bonus track in, 13? Are they being lazy? No, not exactly.

With a closer look, you notice that all of the songs on the new album have a length of 3 to 4 or even nearly 5 minutes with "Conversations With Myself", meanwhile on the selftitled majority of songs didn't even hit the 2 minutes. Back then Matt Hitt, singer of the band, said himself that all of the songs were just really really sped up, which was the reason for the album to be only 28:31 minutes long.

So, does this mean more slow songs on the new album? Who knows. I guess it's not a secret that 'Cruel Ways' is a bit slower than most tracks on the selftitled, reminding me a bit of the feeling around 'Button On Your Blouse', but maybe we can expect majority of the guitar songs to simply last longer than they did before. I guess we will have to be patient to find out.

Truth is, there is a countless amount of bands that fail after their successful debut album because of messing around with new styles and trying new things out, or because they're exactly not doing the latter. "Lack of quality" and "regressed" is what you read in reviews about it. But if the rest of 'On Desire' sounds like 'Cruel Way' does, then this will definitely not happen to Drowners anytime soon.

It seems Drowners have grown in their sound and quality of music, and gave everything more depth than the fast guitar songs that were typical for the first record. I have no doubt that the new record will also include their fast guitar songs, as previously performed tune "Another Go" is namely to be on it, but it seems that there's more ups and downs for both, the music and lyrics. With 'Cruel Ways' at least, Drowners manage to keep a balance between their roots and the will to figure and try new things out, making it sound like a Drowners' song more than any song ever could.

Listen to the song here and make sure you pre-order the promising sophomore album here for only 6,99€.

Album cover to 'On Desire'

Words: Lina Friedrich