Notes From The Drop Zone - 3/26/21

Review:

And what a difference a night makes! While 3/25 did not come close to scratching that itch, 3/26 left me feeling immensely satisfied. The opening Loose Change stayed in type one territory for several minutes, with Brownie never straying too far from the bass line, but it soon opened up into a gorgeous melancholy journey. The jam reminded me of a slowed down Caterpillar theme, or perhaps Rivers, before a spectacular segue into Freebis Slinky. Freebis had a strong jam as well, mostly type one but impressively fleshed out. I was struck by how developed this song had become, and was consequently the slightest bit let down when it didn’t have an outro jam. The band wasted no time in getting things moving again with Caterpillar, which featured a cool theme with some glitchy effects from Magner. The segue into Spacebird was patient and well-executed. The jam out of Spacebird never really grabbed me at the time, but built up to a blissful peak into Naeba. The Naeba jam was essentially a Caterpillar jam right from the get-go, and it yielded a large peak.

The second set opened with a rare standalone Svenghali, and demonstrated Allen’s proficiency with breakbeats. Magner in particular crafted an excellent atmosphere during this jam, and while I usually don’t like what Barber does during dnb jams, he mostly stayed out of the way here until the peak. The Very Moon followed, and while the first jam was the standard type one fare, the second was an absolute journey. It spent good time in type one before the band finally latched onto an exploratory theme, and finally dissolved into ambient space. It registers as a show highlight for me, even though it wasn’t consistently amazing, and the “space” jam didn’t impress me quite as much as the ones from Ardmore—I wish it had gotten even weirder. The drop into Astronaut was sudden, and unearned in my opinion. The jam out of the SITA section never grabbed me, and was a pretty mellow transition into Running. This is where the show forcefully grabbed my attention once again. After a few minutes of somewhat directionless jamming in the Running outro, the band latched onto a great minor key jam, with Magner proving that he can create sinister themes on the piano just as well as on the Virus. The buildup was excellent, the turn into Ladies was earned, and the Ladies peak was stellar. The jam out of Ladies was my easy highlight of the show, with the whole band locked into a grimy trance jam immediately. THIS was the band I came to see! The monolithic trance theme gave way smoothly and effortlessly to the triumphant SITA chords as the band returned to the middle of Astronaut. The second jam in Astronaut—the “main” jam—was almost non-existent. The show closed with Kitchen Mitts: a fitting cap to a fantastic weekend.

At first blush, I would still rank these shows behind Ardmore overall, but this night closed the gap significantly, and I can’t deny how happy it made me to be back.

Highlights:

Ladies > Astronaut

Skull-crushing trance, Bisco at its finest. It wasn’t as exploratory as some of the other entries on the list, but sometimes you just need to hear some mind-numbing trance.

Very Moon > Astronaut

In contrast to the above jam, very inconsistent and very definitively non-trance, yet very exploratory. I think the middle of the jam worked the best for me, but it covered a lot of ground and I’m eager to listen back.

Loose Change > Freebis

There were no new songs last night, so it was refreshing to see them open with these. The first real deep Loose Change (excluding outros) and the first jam into Freebis (excluding 12/28/19, which utilized a fakeout peak) made it clear that the band was ready to take risks. Also refreshing.

Running > Ladies

Great theme going out of Running. Locks in quickly and doesn’t let up.

On the outside chance that anyone from the band is reading this, please don’t let the Ableton/Tractorbeam jamming that was so prevalent during the drive-in tour become just a passing phase. I and many others thought that it yielded some of the most creative Biscuits jamming in years. Please bring back Barber’s synth guitar. OK thanks B4L.

—Mr. Zan