DRRROOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNEEEE

I figured I would start off this lil' venture of mine with a smorgasbord of why I listen to some Drone / Drone Doom.  Basically, drone is basically the art of simpleness with a subtly changing face done to the extreme.  The most bare-bones of the genre could be a few riffs in one long song or some variations thrown in to make it more progressive.  In the end it is all drone, but so much can be found.  While others explore the persistence-of-one-riff-side of things, others start with minimal riffing but excellently tweaking it to make it a diff rent beast towards the end.  The first bands to dabble in it were Melvins and Earth.  Melvins only did it on one album, called "Lysol" (only 1 track at that) but it definitely cemented a place in Drone for them.  Earth, meanwhile started with a demo and E.P. that had sort-of conventional songs but variation in them was minimal, laying ground to their debut album.  "Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version" is basically just about where drone really started.  3 tracks, the first being 15 minutes, the second clocking in at 25 minutes and the last stretching out at a whopping 30 minutes of just guitar, and ridiculously minimal drum work (they don't show up until track 3).  First off, the production was just immense.  Thick, rumbling guitars distorted to perfection exploring all the boundaries of guitar distortion.  The first track, "Seven Angels" is just riff after riff with no percussion at all, slowing down in pace and grinding along like a tiring snail to the second track.  "Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine" brought the speed down even more and dragged the riffs to monolithic proportions, tweaking the sound ever so slightly to make it a completely new animal before the end, giving way to the final track.  "Like Gold and Faceted" ends the album with the definition of drone.  The slowest riff that can ever be made is strummed, and stretched into near oblivion.  Note that the actual playing is unimaginably slow, and it is basically all about letting the riff drone, and changed ever so slightly due to the droning nature of it.

From there, it became a genre and many bands like Sunn O))) and Black Bone Angel  have been major players in this field.  They basically took Earth's impact and added more heaviness, distortion and incredible atmosphere to the genre, whether through keyboards or just really good droning.  Sunn O))) is a favorite of mine, as well as earth and of course, Melvin's "Lysol" album.  So why?  What do I find in drones?  Atmosphere, heaviness and it's incredible how the sound can change so subtle but yet be different by the time the song is done.  Not everyone has the ears for it, and I don't blame them.  Listening to 30 minutes of guitar drone for the reward of a sluggishly changing sound?  Yeah, seems like a waste of time, but for a metal-head audiophile like me, it's pure bliss.  How thick and heavy the sound is, the tranquil hypnotizing nature of it and the laid back-ness of it just get me in a calm mood that only drone can do best.  Now if you will excuse me, I feel like putting on some Earth "Phase 3: Thrones and Dominions"  (the song "Lullaby (Take 2: How Dry I Am)" FTW!!!)