In music, as in journalism, one should always be wary of the exclamation mark. Too often it serves as a warning that the artist is trying a little too hard. The Cribs’ debut record features the dreaded punctuation point only once. However, it might as well be strewn everywhere, such is the project's eagerness to impress.
The New Fellas is the kind of indie record they used to make (in that far off era known to ancients as 'the '80s'). Yet it struggles to match the quality of others who draw from the new wave wellspring (Franz Ferdinand for example). Single ‘Hey Scenesters!’ is a brave shot, a punky funky thumbed-nose to the in-crowd that sounds exactly like the in-crowd and, most probably, is filling indie disco dance floors at this very moment.
For those three, glorious minutes The Cribs sound as though they might be the latest bright young things on the block. Yet that promise begins to drain away as the album continues, revealing this to be a fair to middling debut at best.
Notwithstanding, their bravado the Cribs sound like a small, local band punching above their weight. The targets of their ire seem to be parochial (“your precious Leeds is dead”, “you know your scene has got a lot to answer for, like all those clued up arseholes trying to set us and Wakefield at war”).
The basic production of Edwyn Collins, meanwhile, does nothing to enhance the album.
The dearth of ideas reaches an embarrassing conclusion on the tuneless ‘Haunted’. Looks like these particular brothers need to go away and work it out.