Live Review: Drenge, The Creases

Drenge rhymes with grunge, and like grunge, it's onomatopoeic. These two brothers hail from Derbyshire, England, east of Manchester, in the middle of the country. Despite their bucolic surroundings (or maybe because of it) they became fascinated with Dogme 95 films and Danish cinema, and named their band after the Danish word for 'boys'.

Their chosen sonic weapons are a drum kit, a guitar and a mic, and with that they thrashed out an impressive cacophony very closely related to both Black Sabbath and The Black Keys. They wallow in feedback and cymbal splashes, but they also exhibit keen discipline and never stumble on noise by accident. This discipline unintentionally derailed the support band's credibility in a way. Brisbane's The Creases, nice enough lads, suddenly seemed quaint when followed by the stomping ferocity and blues-riffing gigantism of Drenge's set. Where The Creases were happy to focus on the 'slacker/DIY' aspect of the grunge sound, Drenge attacked the metal and blues roots that fed the scene in the early '90s, resulting in explosive passages of crunching reverb and swagger.

The Creases certainly boasted some nice melodies, and there were moments that sounded like a slightly heavier version of dream-pop bands like Real Estate. Droning guitar fuzz and an easy, loose rhythm section facilitated some neat little earworms from time to time, but then Drenge just detonated those zen moments within the first two songs. Tonight was two sides of one coin. There is a '90s rock resurgence well underway; it may not last much longer. The two camps, DIY and post-post-punk, were well represented, and it's clear to this reviewer that if it were to fade away (for a second time), it would be so much better doing so with a band like Drenge sounding the final hurrah.