What would the British music scene be like these days if The Libertines had never existed? Did Messrs. Doherty and Barat really wield that much of an influence on the landscape, or would another band have eventually come along and inspired a generation of young men to form copycat guitar bands?
One thing’s for sure – The Metros wouldn’t exist without the indie-rockers’ back catalogue, because 99% of their debut album is a poor knock-off of it. From their jaunty guitar riffs and lyrical attempts at ‘urban poetry’, right down to lead singer Saul Adamczewski’s ‘Sarf Lahndan’ Doherty-esque drawl, More Money Less Grief trawls the Five Steps To Forming A Bland manual to the letter.
The quintet say that they’re more influenced by the likes of Squeeze and Ian Dury (his son Baxter produced their demos), but neither are discernible here, apart from the sole imaginative track, the horn-infused ‘Last Of The Lookers’. Otherwise, the majority of arrangements are limited to uptempo, swaggering indie-by-numbers (‘Robin Hood’, ‘Talk About It’) or drearily predictable midtempo ballads (‘Sarah Kane’, ‘Too Many Hannahs’).
The less said about Adamczewski’s lyrics, the better, too: although plausibly intended as tongue-in-cheek, lines like ‘I just wanna get paid/I just wanna get laid’ or ‘Aborted babies don’t get graves’ do him no favours whatsoever. There is some truth in one particular line, however: ‘Education Pt. 2’ sees him grumble ‘GSCE in music, don’t know how the fuck I’m gonna use it.’ Me neither, mate. Bricklayer, maybe?
Key Track: ‘Last Of The Lovers’