Album Review: The View - Cheeky For A Reason

Fans of heavily accented indie-rock rejoice, for The View and their latest release Cheeky For A Reason will be your northern wet dream. Hailing from the land of the Loch Ness monster and the mucklecoo, these guys like are a more cheerful Glasvegas. It might be unfair to instantly connect them to other bands purely because of geography, but these guys sing so proudly and thickly that it's impossible to ignore.

The best part of it is the fact that they pull it off. In what could easily become a twee indie nightmare or an attempted Britpop-rock resurrection, this record comes across as endearingly genuine. They aren't trying to be the Dexys Midnight Runners of the new millennia, they essentially are the Dexys Midnight Runners of the new millennia. The cheery singalong of How Long has the ability to make you happy to be alive, while Hold On Now will get even the most stiff-necked nodding along in time, and their lyrical offer of “let's have a drink and a smoke” is one you wish you could accept in real life.

It's a nice change to find a band from northern-Britain that hasn't been completely emotionally pummelled by the thick doona of cloud that covers their region. The View come with their own compensatory sunshine, so even if their songs start to sound a bit samey by the second half of the album, you forgive them and keep smiling. While it can be hard to listen beyond the kind-of adorable vocals of Kyle Falconer, the music itself is equally impressive, and sits just on the good side of the Coldplay divide.