Album Review: The Cribs - In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull

Where the hell has this come from? Yorkshire band The Cribs started out as post-punk upstarts that robbed from The Strokes and gave to the disenfranchised, albeit from the viewpoint of teens given the keys to a major label wet dream. They've always managed to hold sway over some interesting people, though – Edwyn Collins produced their second record, Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos produced their third, Johnny Marr played with them for a bit, Lee Ranaldo helped give them the spoken-word classic Be Safe. But still the trio came across as not much more than a muscled-up Midlands band, liked by NME but not many others.

Yet fifth LP In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull has seen them shirk the past, instead strangle their guitars and blow out the speakers in a '90s slacker fuzz delight that literally no-one could've predicted. The dual producing credits falling to Dave Fridmann and Steve Albini may have laid down a clue, but the result is incredibly good, even from such low expectations. Opener Glitters Like Gold washes the slickness of previous tracks away, blurring all and sundry with distortion and bluster, and it truly works. Come On, Be A No-One is Weezer on steroids, whilst Jaded Youth just sounds like Weezer – Rivers Cuomo should be nervous. Chi-Town is early Dave Grohl still fuelling his Ramones fetish, and I Should Have Helped is such lo-fi patchwork with muffled recording and rackety acoustics that The Lemonheads might be scratching their heads in recognition.

In The Belly… is a blatant, brazen attempt to grab onto the '90s surge (the new '80s), yet have probably surprised themselves with how well they've done.