I always thought the Cribs and John Peel would've gotten on well together. Their début landed the same year the big man tragically left us back in 2004 and since then they've gone on to embody the fine balance between accessibility and cult cool that defined many of Peel's favourite groups (The Fall, Wedding Present, Wire etc). The Jarmans will have found it particularly satisfying that many of the British indie groups who rode that lucrative wave of success in the mid-noughties have since floundered (Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs) or are otherwise meandering towards an uncertain future (Bloc Party, Maximo Park) with their commercial peaks far behind them. This was the game plan all along though - whilst Johnny Borrell and co were hellbent on conquering the charts back in 2005, the Cribs steadfastly refused to sign up to any commercial fashion wave likely to blunt their edges and kept things rough, honest and as fresh as their early gigs on the Yorkshire club scene. Even high-profile headline sets at festivals saw them strive to alienate casual fans by butchering their most radio-friendly material into a mass of yowling feedback fronted by Ryan Jarman in a bowlcut and a moth-eaten tunic. Their 'nerds first' approach harks back to Kurt Cobain's liner notes in 'Incesticide' where he rails against the jocks and meatheads who'd adopted Nirvana in total ignorance of their politics or worldview, but now that indie acts who courted the Carling-swilling fly-by-nighters in the mid-noughties have seen their fanbases dwindle against the rise of Spotify, X-Box and brazen cultural nostalgia, the Cribs can finally enjoy the last laugh.
You'd therefore expect a few Lily Allen-style digs at those they've left behind on 'In the Belly of the Brazen Bull', but these guys have always been above cheap shots and point scoring. Instead they stick to themes they know best : sneering at shallow fashion shifts on 'Jaded Youth', musing on tension and melancholy on 'Uptight' and raging against those who simply can't be bothered on 'Come on, be a no-one'. Their songwriting chops are as deft as ever too, flitting between the mellow tonic of 'Anna' and the twin-barrel rampage of lead single 'Chi Town'. The setlist here is almost as strong as their '07 career peak 'Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever' and will keep you coming back to pick new favourites - however, this time they've chosen to end the proceedings with a bombastic four-song finale that only they could pull off without looking totally ridiculous. These guys have never made it onto 'The Simpsons' but if they did then you could imagine them busting out this stuff as cartoon versions of themselves in some indie-goes-Broadway set piece with dancing whippets and wet fanzine pages lining the floor. Not all of this is necessarily going to translate to the live show of course, but I saw these guys in Paris prior to the album's release and they rollicked through all their previous records plus a few newbies with enough piss and vinegar to fill a swimming pool so there's no need to worry about them going slack any time soon. This is a cracking addition to their already impressive canon and you have to say that cutting Johnny Marr loose was probably a good move - he was only slowing them down. These guys remain masters of their craft and a veritable inspiration to dudes like myself wondering whether you can maintain the gigs 'n' beer lifestyle into your thirties without starting to look out of place. 'I'd rather be tied to myself than anyone else', they chorus over the closing track, a mantra to live by if ever there was one. Ryan Jarman still has a shitty haircut, plays his guitar with his back to the crowd wearing 28-inch waist ripped jeans and still writes great tunes. The moral of this story is to do things your own way and wait for the rest of the world to realise you were right all along. The Cribs might have taken five albums to reach that point but the journey was well worth it and where they'll go from here is anyone's guess.
Check out : 'Come on, be a no-one' : loud, sweaty, guttural. What more do you need?
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