The Drin + support

The Drin make obscure, threatening post-punk that invites a kind of mental projection. When the Ohio six-piece light up their ambient gloom with a flash of in-the-red guitar or the thunderclap of a harsh snare, it can be as alarming as the sight of a shadowy figure through the trees. 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. 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.