Artist: Mellowdrone
Album: Box
Label: 3 Entertainment/Red Ink/Columbia
Tracks: 13
Length: 45:19
Review by: John Durkee

 For the last few years we’ve been wowed and drawn into the new idea of adding a danceable beat to every kind of music genre possible. Pop music has always had its grooving beats here and there, and rap has in its own right, but lately they’ve been saturated with them. Even rock has joined in on the dance off with even Nine Inch Nails adding grooving beats to songs.

Yet in each one of these cases there’s been something missing. Almost every incarnation of dance fused rock or pop has had that catchy hook, but little else. Shallow melodies that meander and bore after a minute have inundated the new music scene. Yeah, the songs are fun, but they get old really quick.

Enter Mellowdrone

The danceable beats are here and there, but there’s something else too: good songs. Deep songs that have flowing verses to go with catchy choruses that floods Box from beginning to end.

Don’t misunderstand what Mellowdrone really sounds like though; they are not a band you’ll find in a rave, or the next Franz Ferdinand, but a mix of subtle indie rock with slick beats thrown here and there. Box has a beautiful mixture of bouncing bass lines, nonchalant vocals with a spacey tone reminiscent of Starflyer 59, atmospheric ambience and catchy as heck melodies.

Beginning with the hauntingly melancholy “C'mon Try a Little Bit,” that ends abruptly and leads into “Oh My,” one of the catchiest songs on the album. Other standouts include “Fashionably Uninvited,” “Beautiful Day,” “And Repeat,” and “F*** It Man.”

It should be noted though, shown obviously by the title of “F*** It Man,” that this album contains language that has deservingly earned the album a parental advisory. As a Christian, this leads me to passively recommend this album, as it has fantastic music and a generally great theme to it, but I would not suggest those who get easily offended or those who struggle with such language get this album.