Our story is the eternal story of souls who forge their own way, ours from the scorching desert to the ice trench. The group's music and lyrics are an attempt to understand individual and social construction of reality, or realities, filtered through our experiences. A cry to the universe, whoever listen, our resistance to remain human, whatever that means, in the midst of a society ever more mechanical, more controlled. A failed "Civilization". "VORTEX" [2007] the first material of the band, produced independently in its entirety, was born among the "war on terror" ironically performed by a declining empire, the "war on drugs", hatred to the outsider, the immigrant, not only on our continent but throughout the world, the fear of change and redefine ourselves, social, political and cultural process, the ultra-right in power in North America, the re-nascent left in Latin America and the South American union, Neo liberalism destroying families everywhere and becoming a victim of itself, censorship and control of the independent media and the constant bombardment of mainstream media luring us to consume beyond measure, our mother nature claiming the bill for everything we have done without reward, the collapse of the facade of organized religion, our own individual processes, our personal losses of loved ones, and breaking ties that bind others, enmity, hatred, that sometimes poison us, the imbalance. We are the beginning and end, the alpha and omega, Oroborus, the continuous musical note, the ghost in the machine. We are DRONES www.myspace.com/drones Produced by :Chad Liljegren [Hodgepodge Music productions] and Christian Rodriguez Co-produced by: DRONES and Stephen Wresh [Burn method studios] Engineered by: Fernando M.H.M Mixed By: Stephen Wresh Master by: Chris W. Langer [Castle Productions] Art by: NATCHIO [Ignacio Castillo Arvayo] Design and layouts by: Erick Odegaard [MPLS Digital] ALBUM REVIEW by Industrialized Metal http://www.industrializedmetal.com/r_vortice.htm Artist: DRONES Album: Vortice Year: 2007 Oh great, another band from the United States. No, not really... Well, they are from the U.S.A., but this doesn’t seem like “just another band” from the Redneck regions. Drones is based in Minnesota, but exists out of three bandmembers with Latin American (or maybe Spanish) roots. Therefore, the major part of their debut album ‘Vortice’ is filled with Spanish songs. A quick look on their official site (which redirects us to their MySpace site) shows us that things like “revolution”, “civil disobidience” and “love, life and death” can be found among their influences. ‘Vortice’ is released by Drones Records (read: self-released) and consists of eleven tracks, of which six are in Spanish and three in English. The other two? A combination of both! ‘Anger’s Bliss’ is the first track of the album. It’s a quite electro based track, with wicked sampling and diverse guitar- and vocalwork. The uptempo part gets followed by some surprisingly brutal part, to end up in the original easy listening attitude of the song again. ‘Cronica De Un Sueño’ is the first Spanish track on the record. It’s built on a heavy bassline and some crazy electronics, while the other musical aspects give the track a little dark atmosphere. ‘Oscar’ comes up next. It opens with some crazy programming, to get followed by a decent more uptempo track with powerful guitars and crazy sampling. The vocal parts have a little touch of the rap metal of RATM, but the more brutal parts bring the track far away from a rip-off (fortunately). ‘Diversify’ shows a great combination of music samples and clean vocal parts. Furthermore, the song contains easy listening programming and guitarwork. ‘Como Puedes Respirar' is more of a gothic rock track, with lesser electronic samples but a very powerful and dark chorus. ‘Mother Tongue’ is probably the most “metal” track of the album. It opens with thrashy guitarwork and some midtempo programming, which is (combined with the various vocal works) a pleasant plague all over the song. ‘Soledad’ consists of Rammstein likely guitarwork and programming, but the vocal lines and the weird keyparts (sounds like a flute) give the song a different identity. ‘La Carne Del Indio’ is in my opinion the best track of the album. It contains gentle keylines, wicked programming works and brutal guitarwork. The instrumental intermezzo (pay special attention to the guitarwork!) is as surprising as wellfitting. ´Nada´ is a more atmospheric track again, with a heavy bassline, easy going programming and catchy vocal lines. The trick of ´adding distorted guitars on the chorus to make it more dark and powerful´ has been used on this track as well, just like on some different tracks before. ´Break Away´ is also a more atmospheric track, but the song structure is more original. There is more variation in the guitarwork, and the programming is a little more wicked. The album ends with the longest track of the release, named ´Lo Que Me Cuesta´. It contains modern sampling, gentle programming and a bouncing bassline. Some little keylines are added to make the track more atmospheric, as well the guitarwork. Drones turned out to be a more than pleasant surprise for me indeed. I cannot think of a band who sound like this band does, although I must admit that here and there some parts sound a little flat. But, keeping in mind that this is only a debut, this band can only improve even more! Vote: 83 / 100 Review by: Gerardo