Drug Church and Single Mothers, The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham - review

Because anyone following Single Mothers onto the stage needs to be on their game.

These four Cannucks play angry and agitated noise rock – and they do it with style and swagger.

Singer Andrew Thomson is a picture of dramatic gesticulations. Before and during bruising set opener Marathon, he jogs on the spot; spits; and conducts a unseen orchestra.

Introducing the song Money, he channels his inner Carlos Delgado to slam an imaginary home run somewhere over the back of New Street station.

Backed up by a water tight rhythm section, it makes for mesmerising viewing.

It sets things up nicely for Drug Church, who are gracing us with their presence for the first gig of their European tour.

‎Singer Patrick Kindlon has described them as a band that has never taken themselves too seriously, that was somehow given a half decent recording budget and sufficient time in the studio to record a 'proper' album.

The result was Cheer, which saw the band members shared love of what Kindlon calls 90s "major-label s***-rock" morph into a record chock-a-block of head bobbing, foot tapping anthems.

That's not to decry its predecessor, the gritty, punchy Paul Walker (which I hope was named after the late, great The Fast and the Furious actor).

But Cheer has proved to be a game changer, and its success explains why the venue was able to put up the 'sold out' notices long before show time.

Drug Church rifles through three songs from that record before most of us have got our breath, the cleaner singing heard on the album versions of Grubby and Strong References replaced with a harsher, gruff tone in the live setting.

Like Thompson before him – albeit a wirier version – Kindlon is fond of using grandiose hand gestures and a boat load of wit to help tell his tales of strife.

He's also something of a storyteller between songs, admitting to getting lost driving around Birmingham's pain-in-the-arse roads for an hour and a half earlier in the day (we've all done it), and spending a similar amount of time loitering around in Not Dogs in the Bullring having become detached from his bandmates.

As the set progresses the crowd warms up and gives songs like But Does it Work? and Unlicensed Hall Monitor the frenzied reaction they deserve.

First album classic Attending a Cousin’s Birthday Party is greeted with a sing-a-long, while set closer Weed Pin is the perfect example of Drug Church, its punked up fury barely tempered by a sombre melancholy Kurt Cobain would have been proud of.

And with that they're done, the rest of the band marching off stage leaving smiling drummer Chris Villeneuve to sit and stare out into the crowd.

Promoters take note: book more shows like this at The Sunflower Lounge, where a posh pub upstairs leads down into a cramped, sweaty basement that is absolutely bang-on for this type of shindig.

It's a fair bet that Drug Church will have outgrown it by the time they return to the city.