You know when you get cornered at a bar by a really, really drunk guy? And he won’t stop talking because he thinks he’s got something really important to say? But he just keeps repeating himself and slurring, never getting to the point? The Cribs give me that same feeling. Like you know they’re trying to do something constructive and interesting but just can’t quite get there.
And you know at closing time? When you’re on your way home? And you see a group of guys stumbling home wasted together singing in the street flatly, trying in vain to remember the words? That’s what ‘The New Fellas’ reminds me of.
It’s not that The Cribs are all that bad necessarily; they’re just too derivative of too much other British indie and the songs never really take off. The odd guitar line makes your ears prick up because it’s a bit Interpol, or a bit Strokes, but then they trail off and lose you entirely (possibly because the vocalist insists on singing like your inebriated uncle at a wedding party).
This’ll go down well with all the Fred Perry wearing dudes in tight slacks and thrift shoes, but frankly, it’s all a bit tired.
www.thecribs.com
www.wichita-recordings.com
Rae Alexandra is a limey. She has been a music journalist and sub editor since 2001, working mainly for the UK’s Kerrang! and Q Magazines. She recently relocated to San Francisco to finish writing a novel about drunken punk rockers. Feel free to send job offers, insults and photos of emo boys to: raemondjjjj[at]yahoo.com.
