DRENGE GETS GRUNGY AT SHEA STADIUM

I covered Drenge’s show at Mercury Lounge in July of last year as one of my first articles for Pancakes and Whiskey. After a long six months of waiting for the Loveless brothers, Rory and Eoin, and their new bassist, Rob Graham, to return to America, I can earnestly say that my interest in and enthusiasm for these guys has grown. During a time when some indie rock bands have seventeen members to produce a grandiose sound, Drenge has done the same with only two voices and two instruments. While Eoin has achieved some of the low-frequencies of a bass on his guitar until now, Rob’s bass should allow Dredge to drudge their material deeper into young adult Purgatory. Whether you want to call them grunge, metal, garage rock, or what have you, I’m enthralled by how heavy and honest their music is.

Even though they played at the same deafening volume as the Mercury Lounge show, there was something that felt different to me about the show at “Shea Stadium” on Thursday night. Maybe it’s because the venue was more intimate in size and audience. There were more Drenge fans at this show which was made evident by more people mouthing the words and going off. There’s nothing like a venue with no signage that’s up a long steep flight of stairs with ratty old couches, $4 beers, and a shower in the bathroom to pull people together. Or maybe it was Drenge’s performance on Letterman a few nights prior that changed the vibe. It was interesting to see the juxtaposition between their televised performance in a nicely lit studio space and this show. Other than the incorporation of Drenge’s new single entitled We Can Do What We Want and a few other new songs they mostly played favorites from their first self titled album.

What I love most about Drenge is not only their boisterous, hostile lyrics and sound, but how memorable and unpretentious their music is at the same time. There’s an inherent sense of sinister fun. Eoin said in an interview with Ones to Watch put out by House of Blues that, “I guess people kind of think that we’re more aggressive than we actually are. We just like making aggressive kind of distorted guitar sounding music.” Drenge’s new single, We Can Do What We Want, stays in the family with it’s declarative, fast paced nature, but has another upbeat, foot tapping back bone. Drenge’s new album Undertow is due to be released April 6th of 2015 and I for one, am impatient and excited to hear what grim, invasive, catchy, cacophony they put out next.

Article by: Jenna Pinch