THE DRIN

Booking Agent EU/UK :Diego Bustamante

The past few years have seen The Drin emerge as true innovators of Midwestern punk, blurring all sub-genre lines and instead creating in their own dark world. Over the course of their first two albums, the Cincinnati band has proven capable of subverting senses, blending together everything from synth punk and krautrock to icy psych and mechanized gothic lo-fi, all filtered through the basement walls with a wavering energy. The more time you spend listening to The Drin, the deeper the connection becomes, the better the pieces all fit. The band keep that exploratory momentum moving with their upcoming third album in as many years, Today My Friend You Drunk The Venom, a record that feels pulled from another dimension, surreal and augmented from this existence. Due out January 27th via Feel It Records, Drunken Sailor Records, and Future Shock, the band expand on what’s come before, continuing to push further into their captivating unpredictability. It’s engaging from start to finish, a pulsing, swirling, clamor of dust and electricity, destined for cult acclaim.”

“From its origins as Dylan McCartney’s solo outlet, The Drin has evolved into a rock-solid six-piece—and while they’re treading similar sonic ground as previous releases Engines Sing for the Pale Moon and Down River in the Distance, this new configuration represents a tremendous leap forward in urgency, power, and sound quality. Driven by proud bass riffs and trashy drums, each song feels like an exercise in mood and texture, the synths and guitars alternately stabbing and droning at the periphery of McCartney’s ominous, mostly spoken vocals. There’s a welcome variety of song structure and vibe represented here, from the pure punk of “Stonewallin’” and “Walk So Far” to the spacious, Morricone-tinged “Go Your Way Alone.” Don’t forget the dub track! The album’s best songs, though, find a balance between these various poles—take lead single “Venom,” with its all-timer of a bass line and relentless percussion blazing a trail directly through the detuned synths and wobbly guitars, or the sublime clatter of “Peaceful, Easy Feeling.”

Of course there are plenty of comparisons to be made here: the paranoiac punk of early Joy Division and The Fall, Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers’ noisy melodicism, Neu! and Can’s rhythmic insistence, the synthy aggression of more recent standouts like Total Control and Viagra Boys. But those references don’t quite get at the core of why a record like Venom is such a success. This is post-punk in the broader, original sense of both stripping it down and expanding the punk ethos in new directions, lifting ideas and sonic elements from other genres and assimilating them into a new thing you can still dance to. It’s a music that allows for the pinhead asceticism of punk and the indulgent zone-gazing of psych, a microcosm of opposites. All of this is just a roundabout way of stating the obvious: The Drin is a rock ’n’ roll band, and Today You Drunk the Venom is a rock ‘n’ roll record. A really good one. Enough said.

 
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Tourdates

No shows booked at the moment.