Drenge, Electric Ballroom, London - review

There was an interesting range of projectiles at Drenge's show. It began, conventionally enough, with the volley of plastic glasses that greeted the trio, a traditional token of rock-fan exuberance, in the manner of confetti at weddings. But then items of clothing began appearing, as though some daredevil were attempting a reckless strip show in the heart of the moshpit.

A jacket was the first to go, flung aloft during "Gun Crazy". Drummer Rory Loveless hammered the drums with hardcore zeal. His brother Eoin played hard-boiled guitar riffs and hollered about a femme fatale who's "gonna mess me around", a grungier version of provincial vamps in Arctic Monkeys' songs - the latter a band Drenge have supported and with which they share a base in Sheffield.

The disrobing continued with a shirt hurled stage-wards during "Nothing", a noisy stop-start stomp in the style of early White Stripes. Then came a shoe amid the pared-down riffola of "Backwaters", narrowly missing touring bassist Rob Graham. And so it went on, a T-shirt tossed up here, another shoe thrown over there; and, during a track from their new album Undertow , what looked like a . . . kitchen apron?

Undertow smoothes away the rough edges from the Loveless brothers' modus operandi. The result is a place in the UK top 20 but also a diminution in the full-bore velocity of their earlier songs. Solid grunge revivalism in "The Snake", for instance, caused the apron thing to be tossed around over the moshpit in a way that suggested distraction, not wild abandon. But other new tracks seemed liberated in the live setting, all coiled riffs, powerhouse drumming and unfussily constructed walls of sound.

Amid the melee of flying garments someone in the audience risked inspecting a lyrics website on her smartphone. Drenge (Danish for "boys") aren't without finesse, their songs vivid with gothic images of sex and death, the tone one of black humour. But at the Electric Ballroom finesse played second fiddle to force, culminating in an immense noise-rock finale with "Let's Pretend". The lights went up, and a good portion of the dazed audience was left wondering how to get home without shirt or shoes and what to say about the whereabouts of the kitchen apron.

www.drenge.co.uk

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