Reviews / heavy rock
Review: Drenge, The Lantern
When Drenge first burst on to the British indie scene in 2013 with their heavy, heavenly eponymous debut album there were only two of them. A band of brothers quite literally, Eoin (guitar and vocals) and Rory (drums) Loveless created a full bodied, furious sound with one voice and two instruments. Now, two albums in and a third in the works, the band has doubled in size for their Grand Reopening Tour with Ed Crisp and Rob Graham joining them on bass, keys and guitar. Last night they visited Bristol to play to a sold out Lantern.
This is the band’s first headline tour in three years and thus the title Grand Reopening Tour is apt. They begin their set by cutting a red ribbon tied across the stage between two mic stands as frontman Eoin Loveless delivers a heartfelt speech to the expectant crowd. He proclaims, “It’s very exciting to be here. We’re back where we belong, on the road and in your hearts,” before the group burst into an unreleased tune entitled Bonfire. The vese is a pounding mass of bass and drums with Loveless singing with a spoken word delivery before furious guitars come in for a cacophonous chorus,
Bonfire isn’t the only new song in the set, there’s also This Dance which the group debuted on 6 Music earlier this week. It’s a fidgety number with squealing guitars and the band’s first use of synthesizers. They also play new tunes Outside and Fades To Black for the Bristol crowd. The former being highly moshable and the latter being, well, highly moshable.
is needed now More than ever
The new material is received well but it’s the older material that gets the warmest reception. Nothing with its aggressive stop start guitar is screamed along to by almost every audience member, as are other other fan favourites such as Face Like A Skull, Never Awake and Bloodsports.
But the highlight of the set came in the encore, Eoin Loveless picked up his acoustic guitar, climbed over the barrier into the crowd and began playing the band’s much beloved Fuckabout. This was a special moment, especially for the many people there who, like me, had Drenge’s debut as the soundtrack to their formative years. The whole room sang in unison with the final line “I don’t give a fuck about people in love / They don’t piss me off they just make me give up” resonating around the room as the final chords died out and the house lights came on.
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