Strange but true: These British indie-rockers first gained widespread notoriety when an MP recommended them in his resignation letter several years ago. Not sure about his politics, but there’s no arguing with his musical taste. Led by singer-guitarist Eoin Loveless and his younger brother Rory on drums, Drenge are nowhere near as cacophonous and alien as their name might suggests. And while they might remind you a bit of early Arctic Monkeys — but far weirder — they’re hardly straightforward, crowd-pleasing rock ’n’ roll. Rather, their third full-length album Strange Creatures is a fittingly bizarre hybrid: Ten brawny, unruly numbers braced by sludgy grinding riffs and hammering drums, laced with slashing guitar-clang chords and knotty angular licks, and graced with loopy electronics, saxophones and blackly humoured narratives about teenage love, prom night and avalanches. Nothing strange about that. Not for them, anyway.
