REVIEW: Drugstore, Drugstore- Tim Mohr

The name seems rather apt for this new English combo, and even if it gently tugs a reference to the film "Drugstore Cowboy" from deep within your mass-culture-stuffed brain (as it did mine), the added connotations won't be inappropriate: if Marlboro can be cited as a reliable source, the cowboy can be reduced to a series of weathered images of worn rawhide, creviced faces, and smoke. Isabel Monteiro's husky, leathery voice leads Drugstore through a set of songs that almost would have to be lip-synched if not coming from world-beaten faces clenched around cigarettes. Joined by Mike Chylinski on drums, and Daron Robinson on guitar and piano, Monteiro, on bass and vocals, unwinds exquisitely woebegone lyrics over songs that often trod slowly, sparsely, through austere, tambourine-specked regions.

Although Drugstore are based in England, Monteiro moved there from South America. Prior to this album they released a few singles; fortunately they have included arguably the most touching song from the singles, a b-side called "Acceleration" that recalls Galaxy 500's highpoints. The album showcases Monteiro's voice, alternatively as full and rich as Lisa Germano or Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano, as catharctic as Courtney Love on Hole's "Doll Parts," or as meloncholic as Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval.

Stripped of the country-ish trappings of Mazzy Star but retaining a similarly slow, plaintive atmosphere, Drugstore occasionally explode with noise characteristic of PJ Harvey, the dynamic extreme from an unruly three piece band not technically equipped to grunge-out. The self-titled debut is characterized by Monteiro's textual malaise hitched to haunting instrumental backdrops dominated by acoustic guitar, idly tinkling piano, and, throughout, admirably restrained percussion.

The album opener, "Speaker 12," lays out a fundamental thematic element, a marbling of sleep and death imagery: "These days time is dragging real slowly, not much I feel like doing. I just want to slip away...maybe I'll get myself into a coma, spend my whole life dreaming."

Drugstore twist the words and music together on "Gravity"; "Funny how the stars look faraway, and it makes me sad to be surrounded...we are hopelessly waiting for the sky to fall down." The band bursts into a 20 second maelstrom that simulates the sky falling, then fades into a lonely slide guitar as if to say that the celestial shift was only a futile dream.

"Fader" nearly could be the Jesus & Mary Chain, with the classic feel of a tambourine beat, tortured guitars, and "da doo doo, da doo doo" background vocals. Monteiro sings, "I'm gonna dig myself a hole and get my head inside, gonna keep eyes closed, feel my heart dripping by. Life can be so ordinary..."

Similarly, on "Saturday Sunset", she sings that "life never changes and nothing in this world is new." To be sure, many conflicts, shattered dreams, and meloncholic sentiments have been repeated by each generation; Drugstore has drained away the ephemeral elements of such repetitions and molded the transcendant concentrate into what will surely prove to be a timeless expression of feeling like shit.