• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Oct 16, 2023 Web Exclusive By Andy Steiner

Since The Drums released their first album in 2010, the group dwindled down. By 2017, only Jonny Pierce remained. Even though he was always group’s main songwriter, Pierce didn’t adapt to his new role as solo-act-masquerading-as-band. His first records as the sole member of The Drums—2017’s Abysmal Thoughts and 2019’s Brutalism—attempted to recreate the breeziness of “Let’s Go Surfing,” “Me and the Moon,” and other early hits. Brutalism promised to be evocative and personal, but it fell short as well.

On Jonny, he unapologetically makes an album for and about himself. It’s self-titled, self-interrogative, and self-referential. And it’s the best album The Drums have made.

Pierce created Jonny as he reckoned with his repressive religious upbringing, relationships, and sexuality. Even though these are graphic topics, the album refuses to be trauma porn. Jonny isn’t bitter or ugly; it just yearns. Pierce has never sounded like such a lovelorn crooner as he does on “Be Gentle,” where he demands that a sexual partner treats him with the same tenderness he offers himself. He uses his fear on “I’m Still Scared” to spark a miniature dance break. He finds a partner with gentleness and love on “The Flowers.”

But the record doesn’t shy away from its graphic subject matter either. “Harms” excavates the pain. “She didn’t teach me love/She didn’t teach me trust/It shows up everywhere,” he sings atop a choir. His voice floats in the air like a hymn in church. “Green Grass” is the record’s barest moment; Pierce reckons with abandonment accompanied by just his own guitar. Opener “I Want It All” aches from an abusive relationship: “Tell me, was it so hard to give a little tenderness?” he confronts them.

But what makes Jonny special is its collision of compassion and confrontation. Pierce pairs each dark moment with an insistence on kindness. The line “Sisyphus in my face/Fucking my face/All day” fades into the embrace of “Little Jonny.” His lyrics alternate between visceral and ambiguous, allowing any queer person to fill in their own narrative of self-discovery and forgiveness. Even the album artwork—a self-portrait nude Pierce took in his childhood home—is a collision of religion, family, sex, and sexuality. Like the record, it’s both gentle and explicit.

The Drums have always been one-note, churning out catchy but gloomy indie pop. But Pierce widens his emotional range without losing his expertise in those infectious, bite-sized songs. Moments on Jonny depart from the standard formula of The Drums’ best work (“Pool God,” “I’m Still Scared”). But these departures make that formula sound even better when Pierce returns to it. “Obvious” is one of his best pop songs ever and a well-earned moment of joy.

Jonny is not flawless. It doesn’t stick the landing on the mortality-conscious closers “Pool Gods” and “I Used to Want to Die,” whose on-the-nose lyrics break its flow. Rico Nasty cameos on “Dying,” and her appearance detracts from the momentum after Jonny’s most earnest moments. But the album is still a victory and an ode to the discomforts, pains, and ecstasies of Pierce’s queerness. He earns the self-title on this record. With Jonny, The Drums is finally his. (www.thedrums.com)

Author rating: 8/10