GIG REVIEW: Drenge - Electric Ballroom, 21st April

for fans of: Palma Violets, Royal Blood, Eagulls, Slaves, Nirvana

(photo creds: gigwise)

With a Letterman appearance across the pond, a sold out UK tour and a top 20 album under their belt, Drenge have got it going on. The London leg of the Undertow tour was held at Camden's famous Electric Ballroom - a mini-Brixton type venue with a dodgy paint job, known to house rising rock and punk acts.

For their sophomore effort Undertow, Drenge departed from dry wit and towards something as close to maturity as you can get while being a member of a rock band who gets cups of overpriced beer thrown at you every night. Undertow was written with a new voice; a new perspective on old themes of death, weapons, and vehement melancholy. While songs like The Snake rumble with vicious biblical undertones and Favourite Son dreams of bloodthirsty sex, they've made a grittier statement than their eponymous debut did. Luckily, their signature meditated fury is easily brought to the stage.

The Loveless brothers (plus one) emerged into a room pumping with testosterone. Sweating adolescent males with rubbery torsos mimicked the boiling angst of Drenge's stone cold grunge. Violent mosh pits broke out from the moment the first echoed chord of album stand-out Running Wild was strung.

The addition of a bassist means Drenge's sound is sonically expansive but lacks niche. They've been replaced with the likes of Slaves and Royal Blood - the latter of which's success they may not achieve as it's unlikely that this Sheffield-born band whose lyrics consist of themes similar to "make you piss your pants / I wanna break you in half" could get the backing of the clean-cut, viewer-hungry BRIT Awards. Regardless, the fever of their live presence really proves that they can do what they want and their fans will follow like a pack of salivating dogs.

(photo creds: gigwise)

What they lack in on-stage charisma, Drenge (Danish for 'boys') make up for in monstrous sound. Lead singer and guitarist Eoin Loveless showcased their new, flavourful riffs in Never Awake - complete with howling crowd wail-a-longs - and old-school grunge favourites like Gun Crazy, where the mosh pits relished Loveless as he growled "woah, oh oh, my baby, oh my baby's gonna mess me around". The fantastic energy of their debut is still present in their sweatiest of new hits - We Can Do What We Want - where the atmosphere transformed into one of a collective acid trip.

Before unusual (i.e. dull; i.e. where is I Don't Want To Make Love To You?) set-closer Let's Pretend, the crowd - sounding like 60 year old heavy smokers - chant along to fan favourite Fuckabout. A few bruises and dislocated shoulders later, Drenge's set ends and proves that total anarchy will forever be in their favour.

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GIG REVIEW: Beach Baby - Sebright Arms, 16th April

for fans of: The Maccabees, Alvvays, Oscar, Cherry Glazerr, Dog Is Dead

photo creds: The Guardian

The Sebright Arms is an awkward venue. Deep in a pub basement, it attracts clusters of shouty people who are either transfixed or completely unengaged with the music.

What was even more awkward was the joke made by Honey Moon about how they've come all the way from London. No one in the basement of Shoreditch pub laughs, but I thought it was kind of funny. Clad in Mac Demarco flat hats and baggy shirts along with a member who resembles Reid from Criminal Minds, the opening set from this foetal (i.e. they formed in 2015) band is finished in a flash. In all fairness, they probably performed the only four songs they've written: songs about girls and the weather. Yet what they showcase is truly excellent: crafted hippy licks and dips and psychedelic melodies performed not entirely like amateurs but with a whimsical sort of air. Unfortunately, Honey Moon performed for about 20-30 people in the 150+ capacity venue but they are seriously ones to keep on your radar.

Between sets, the crowd grew steadily as a seemingly seamless string of people fed into the crowd. Soon the Sebright Arms was even more awkward - packed and stuffy, drawing in an odd mix of people, and not a bar of phone service in sight.

When Goldsmith University's Beach Baby took to the stage, they were met with a surprising amount of adoration - an unforeseen reaction because they've only released two songs... out of the five or six they already have. Nonetheless, either they have exceedingly impassioned fans, intensely proud family members or, the more likely scenario seeing as this is Britain, everyone was a jolly drunk - everything Beach Baby did was met with rapturous applause.

Fresh off Jungle's European tour and splashing into their first ever London headline show, Beach Baby are a bit of a mix-match - nothing quite fits yet. Blissful percussion beats were met with shredding guitars, and complimentary vocals from two lead singers with questionable fashion choices (like, board shorts????). The traditionally subtle debut single Ladybird was excitingly brash and fierce - totally different to the studio recording. Long gone were acoustic rumblings and vocal mumblings; in it's place were frantic guitars and exasperated vocals. If the crowd was young enough, there might have even been a mosh pit.

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ONLY REAL: the jerk who keeps ska real

Take the sunny, slidy guitar licks of Mac Demarco, the dulcet rumblings (and carrot top) of King Krule, and the cheeky geezer rap of Jamie T - sugar, spice, and everything nice - and you have Only Real.  West Londoner Niall Galvin - not like the river, but like the Irish one in 1D - has conjured up a debut with as much fizz as a shaken up champagne bottle.

photo creds: NME

Free-spirited baggy pop is indented in every groove of Jerk At The End Of The Line, giving a ballsy twist to slacker rock. Opening with Twist It Up, a looping 90s-flared ditty that draws similarities to the dainty daydreaming of later track Backseat Kissers, a peculiar level of intrigue is set. Then the record plunges into the classic theme of 'fuck-I'm-in-my-late-teens-to-early-20s', accentuated by teasing vocals and commonplace tales of messing about, i.e. in the almost-titular track Jerk. If that Caribbean Twist alco-pop you used to drink when you were sixteen could sing, it'd probably sound something like this festival-ready soundtrack. Feeding the tongue-in-cheek lyrics that gave the album its name (baby when did you get so fine? / if you missed me, I'm the jerk at the end of the line), Jerk is Only Real at his indie-ska finest.

He brings the lo-fi hip-hop side out of him most prominently on the reworked version of Blood Carpet, heavy with saliva spits and floppy jingles. Yet he easily flips back to cutesy ska on the hyperactive sugar rush Pass The Pain, Daisychained - it's okay baby, we're crooks too - and Yesterdays, with its layers upon layers of easy breezy riffs. These vintage-tinged riffs are also favoured in closing track When This Begins, which starts with harmonies and minimalist production that could have come straight off of a Jungle demo.

The 22-year-old's biggest hitter, Cadillac Girl, gets stuck in your head for days on end. There's a certain psychedelic seriousness that's championed by essentially odd lyrics - e.g. the quick succession of too late / few days / shirt off / Kool-Aid (and whatever else he says... something about screw face, or some equal sort of slang...). The rythmic rap gathers the distance of lost love - "oh she's so over me / she's so cold" - as the summery synths take a step back into an undercover kind of sadness.

The instrumental of Petals seems to be haunted by more of a Casper the Friendly Ghost-esque ghoul but steps away from UK-centric grime to a spit with more of an American hip-hop flair, whereas Break It Off may have lackadaisical verses but the chorus is a heavy, resentful chant. Seemingly written from a place of nebulous disturbance, Can't Get Happy covers these dirt tracks of raw emotion with addictive beats and massive percussion. Though with a first listen the melancholy could be overlooked, it's actually all over Only Real's debut making it more complex than meets the eye... Or in this case, the ear. Nevertheless, Jerk At The End Of The Line marks the impending breakthrough of an underrated British talent.

JERK AT THE END OF THE LINE IS AVAILABLE NOW ON VIRGIN EMI RECORDS

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