Album reviews: Drenge – Strange Creatures, and Sleaford Mods – Eton Alive

Drenge display ferocity fit for stadiums on ‘Strange Creatures’, while the fifth studio work from punk duo Sleaford Mods has more than social commentary to offer

The new album from Drenge is packed with musical ideas (James Winstanley)

Drenge, Strange Creatures

★★★☆☆

A few years ago, post-grungers Drenge breathed new life into rock music alongside another White Stripes-influenced British duo, Royal Blood. Yet, while the latter quickly erupted onto arenas with their thrashing blues-rock, Drenge will be in venues a fraction of that size when they tour this spring. Not that you’d know that from the muscular power of this third album.

In the four years since their second album, Derbyshire’s Loveless brothers have expanded to a four-piece, and Strange Creatures is certainly packed with musical ideas. Opener “Bonfire of the City Boys” is an anxious outsider’s spoken-word rant against a dystopian vision of masculinity set to heavily distorted bass and a punishing onslaught of drums. Observations such as “your eyes were like two Catherine wheels/ Just spinning, spinning, spinning” capture a manic intensity echoed by the unhinged drums and psychedelic feedback. It sets the eerie tone of unease that permeates the 10 cinematic tracks, from the ghostly late-1970s synths of “This Dance” to the doom-laden “No Flesh Road” and the deep chants over closing song “When I Look Into Your Eyes”. There’s tender introspection here, too, in the reverb-heavy “Avalanches”.

The title track is an intoxicating mix of stately Paul Banks-esque post-punk vocals, synths, electronic flute, and a searing guitar riff. It’s a riff fit for stadiums, by a band who have the ferocity to be there. Elisa Bray

Sleaford Mods, Eton Alive

★★★★☆

The album title of the year gives us an image of Brexit Britain trashed by Old Etonians David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, but the fifth studio work from the punk duo has more than social commentary to offer. There’s some of that, as vocalist Jason Williamson skewers documentary-makers who take advantage of the poor in “Kebab Spider” – “the skint get used in loo roll shoes” – but elsewhere this is a record that expands the idea of what Sleaford Mods could be.

The first few moments of opener “Into The Payzone” – bass, snare, electronic burp – set up the classic blueprint for the band: unstoppable beats, lyrics that smash the too-real into the surreal, and choruses that won’t leave you alone. “Flipside” sounds as if it could sit on 2013’s Austerity Dogs, and Williamson hasn’t lost his belligerence. “Sit down, just shut up, I’ll talk,” he shouts on “Policy Cream”.

But Andrew Fearn’s beats are no longer just the backdrop, they’re threatening to take over this album. Surprising influences creep in, from Eighties R&B to the Human League, and on “When You Come Up To Me”, Williamson not only sings but there’s a melancholy tone breaking through the anger. “I don’t want to flip the page/ Of my negative script,” he intones on the final track, but there’s just a hint that he does. Chris Harvey