Gill Sutherland watches a full-on rock racket from Drenge

A band consisting solely of one drummer and one guitarist may have been done before (hello,White Stripes!) but tonight is a whole different cod fish.

We are to be entertained by Drenge, which sounds like a contradiction in terms. And to be honest, I’m worried. Never mind the stinky name, it seems impossible two blokes and their modest instruments will be able to fill even the relatively small void that is upstairs at the O2.

Strolling on stage and adopting their positions, they are a curious if unthreatening spectacle. Two brothers hailing from picturesque honeypot village of Castleton in the Peak District: singer with the buzzcut and guitar is older bro Eoin Loveless, 21, and scraggle-haired drummer is Rory. And then it starts. The cachophony.

Opener Face Like A Skull, as you might expect from its title, is brutal, full-on rock racket. Eoin attacks his guitar like an old-school heavy metal champ, while Rory explodes into Animal-from-Muppets mode – a whirl of flailing rat-tail hair, arms, drumsticks and attitude. Eardrums blister. The young audience erupts into a frugging mass. A shoe is thrown.

More songs follow that hurt. You can guess from their titles that they would: Dogmeat, Bloodsports, Necromance... They are driven home to delicate ears by machine gun guitar, shredded to oblivion by a country boy from a nice part of the world: who would have thought it? But it’s the drums that truly slay. They are hit with such fierceness they sound like a punked-up military parade coming to do get you, each strike resonating like a bayonet to the heart.

Between songs, little bro chucks his water bottle cap at big bro, followed by the plastic bottle, which bounces ineffectually from the latter’s instrument. There’s a T-shirt for sale at the merch table depicting the two of them on Christmas morning, matching pudding-bowl haircut, opening prezzies. You can imagine them growing up, squabbling, listening to grunge heroes Nirvana and Pearl Jam in their bedroom. Mix those influences with Brit bands like Motorhead, Sex Pistols and the Libertines, and the band start to make sense: a curiously British production – small but with a mighty sound.

It’s not all noise. Beneath the blitzkrieg rock are hints of a melodic soul – lyrics are thoughtful, angsty tales of modern youth life. Their eloquence is most evident on their one ballad, F***about, whereon Eoin bemoans he is an unworthy waster. A ballsy anthemic number that could fill a stadium, never mind the O2.