Drenge
Undertow
INFECTIOUS
6/10
Guitar riff! Drum fill! Dramatic pause! Repeat! Always repeat. It’s a formula as old as your dad’s moldy Mountain records sitting in the closet, and it continues to exist to this day for a good reason: it works. British brothers Rory and Eoin Loveless know that, and that’s why they’re back with Undertow—their second collection of fast, brutal, and raw rock tunes under the appropriately murky name Drenge. It’s an electrifying record, no doubt, but the formula they utilize will only get them so far, and stylistically the band has done little maturing since arriving in 2013 with its self-titled debut (album highlight “We Can Do What We Want” features the line, “We’re like Bonnie and Clyde but without any pride”—ugh). Sure, it’s fun to make music that sounds like The Black Keys coated in a layer of sludge, but when it remains unadulterated for thirty-five minutes, it can get a little old pretty fast.
