‘He left me hanging, On the side of the road, At the devil’s crossing, With nowhere to go’ (Moths To The Light)

Beginning as a solo project, The Drin has since evolved into a six strong collective, drawing members from across Cincinnati’s punk community, most notably Artificial Go, Corker, and Crime Of Passing.  This is the band’s fifth album and their evolution since 2021’s Engines Sing For The Pale Moon has been fascinating to follow.  Each release has become incrementally more ambitious.  That they have again achieved this progression on the back of 2024’s brilliant Elude The Torch is, perhaps, even more striking.

I Lost My Way For Centuries is, in fact, a double album, with nineteen tracks spanning its sixty-minute runtime.  And, remarkably, not once do you feel The Drin’s grip on your attention slip.  The usual pitfalls of such extended releases are resolutely avoided.  This is not say that there is not a certain sprawl.  But rather that it is a sprawl cultivated by a sense of wandering, languorous exploration.  Time is not a concern. Importantly though, the value of traditional songcraft is never blurred, ensuring that improvisation and immediacy are tightly bound together with a singular focus.

The band continue to mould a myriad of influences – bluegrass intertwines with neofolk before pivoting to introduce flourishes of dub punk and psych rock – into a vibrantly textured, deeply atmospheric tapestry.  The heart of the band’s sound remains rooted in the spry rhythm section, brittle guitar, and subtly serpentine saxophone, while the cryptically drawled vocals conjure their wryly abstract vignettes.  With these elements locked in, it gives the band scope to deftly explore a wider instrumental palette that segues from raucously flaring harmonica to the metallic twang of the bouzouki and the dreamy haze of the tambourines.

There are highlights aplenty.  The faded stridency of The Sky Has Lost The Smile.  The harmonica laced jangle of Moths To The Light.  The swaggering, sax fuelled elation of Prophets Of Doom.  The woozy lament of Fatal Charade.  The skeletal blues of Body Double.  The funkily propulsive That Kind Of Water.  The shimmering murmur of the title track itself.  Languidly euphoric, infectiously evocative, The Drin have undeniably found their way, and it is very much one of their own making.