To suggest that two of the bands on this bill are mounting the first rung of the music ladder is false; Young British Artists and headliner D/R/U/G/S are already garnering considerable gushing acclaim.

Even the night’s youthful bunch of upstarts, Golden Glow, have already had an album out – last year’s Tender Is The Night - and opened for The Drums, not to mention the fact they’re fronted by former Friends Of Mine partymeister Pierre Hall.

Like the previous True Faith nights, there’s no thematic tie beyond geography between these musical bretheren, but there’s a similar appreciation for the Sub Pop fuzz and early-1990s wild guitar noise better known as shoegaze that filters through the songs of Golden Glow and Young British Artists.

Where the Glow embrace plinky guitar melodies (one of them considerably borrowed from The Cure’s Just Like Heaven), YBA are all feedback and slow burning, organ-led atmospherics, grizzly Mudhoney basslines and Buggles-style distorted vocals.

D/R/U/G/S (who, for clarity, are not the American hardcore outfit Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows) couldn’t be further from this guitar-doing-battle-with-percussion set up. D/R/U/G/S, in fact, is a lone DJ – 22-year-old Callum Wright, last seen sending a capacity crowd mental at Parklife in Platt Fields.

The Pavilion lends itself better to watching bands than it does to watching a DJ on his mixing desk. Only gentle nods meet the four to the floor booming anthems of Velodrome II and Look At What U Did 2 Me, a slightly messy mix from the first to the second suggesting opening nerves.

The slapping beats and dark grooves of Triga – think Orbital mixing up some chillwave – pull it all back, though, and by Feelin’ Good (complete with plaintive samples of the Nina Simone classic) they’re ready to embrace the euphoria.

Feelin’ Good, too, is proof that when D/R/U/G/S gets it right, he really could be the next big thing. As does set closer Love/Lust, which rewards the crowd’s increasing enthusiasm with a barage of insistent 4/4 rhythms and joyous samples.

An unscheduled encore even takes Dave by surprise, and while it’s all a bit untidy round the edges, it shows Wright is willing to get stuck in without a plan when the crowd shout for more.

And if he can think this well on his feet, D/R/U/G/S really could end up being the biggest graduate of this year’s True Faith series.

Tweet