Equation #35: The Cribs

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The Cribs

There's an idiom that people use to describe the even in which a new addition to an old stereotype pushes beyond the status quo and generates a new medium or, as middle management would say, "a new paradigm". The expression I refer to is "broke the mould". After almost ten years of fairly consistent releases by British and New York bands that rely on the dancy, post-punk sound, borrowing most of their ideas from the 1970s with only marginal innovation, the release of The Cribs third album "Men's Needs, Woman's Needs, Whatever" leaves the mould staunchly intact. This is not to say that it's a bad album, which it really isn't, it's just that when word comes down the pipe about the "next big band" that's just about to be "discovered" and it turns out it's just three guys playing the same music as everyone else it's a bit disappointing.

That said, the album needs a reviewin' and I reckon we ought to have one. In the vein of Arctic Monkeys, The Futureheads and Maximo Park, The Cribs play bouncy, punkish rock with a danceable beat and chirping syncopated guitars. Generally snotty, heavily accented vocals and purposely rough production only add to the idea that while their songs are original, their sound is not. Borrowing from the Stone Roses, Sonic Youth, Pavement, and produced by Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos the Cribs take the road more traveled and still manage to add a decent album of toe tappers into the collective genre. It's an album that feels familiar but asserts itself as a singular work with variations on it's contemporaries. In other words, it's not exactly The Strokes and it's not exactly The Futureheads but it's close.

So maybe they will be the next "big band", maybe they'll have a number one record and show up on MTV or an iPod commercial, it's not impossible, in fact it's downright plausible considering the taste of the current market. Even if they did make it big, success still doesn't break the mould.