It’s been a fair few years since Brooklyn, New York quartet The Drums last hit Glasgow with their outlandish and flamboyant take on indie pop, as the band will attest to themselves during a bristling hour and a half set, at one point it looked as if the boys had already played their last shows on these shores, thankfully, rumours of demise were somewhat pre mature.
2014s Encyclopaedia finds the band experimenting with a far more moody and surreal direction steeped in electronic synthesizers, veering away from the satirical surf pop irony, which was found at great depth in previous releases.
Tonight they open with ‘Bell Laboratories’, the perfect doctrine to showcase Encyclopaedia, ostentatious lead singer Jonny Pierce bellows over the hypnotizing looping synth with his shaking snake hips leading the descending reincarnation of the quartet, as they head unknowingly into a uncertain yet curiously challenging chapter for the band.
That is a chapter that will be wholly fought on another night, though, as the band lighten proceedings with choice cuts from the self titled debut LP and 2011s Portamento, ‘Me and the Moon’, ‘Days’ and ‘Best Friend’, Glasgow reacts favourably with some fine drunk dancing and elevated over emphasised syllable renditions.
As the New Yorkers evolve as a band, so does certain styling, for example, at times tonight the presence and figure of Pierce cuts into that of a younger astoundingly bittersweet Morrissey, he’ll swoon around stage pouting and prowling, captively fascinating the audience with a Cheshire grin that occasionally relents into a devils smirk, his band backing him with a tight musicianship, ensuring this sold out crowd are not going anywhere until Pierce decides to drop them from the palm of his hands.
Reappearing for an extended encore of six songs, which includes nostalgically endearing gems from the 2009 Summertime EP such as ‘Don’t Be A Jerk, Johnny’, ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ and eventual closer ‘Down By The Water’.
It is clear that the past tense of the bands discography is a far more compos mentis note to end on than perhaps the darker, grittier and more volatile girth that awaits in future.
Words: Chris Kelman
Photos: Kyle Burgess
