shop | mailing lists
musicOMH
music: album reviews
The View - Hats Off To The Buskers (1965)
UK release date: 22 January 2007
4 stars
The View - Hats Off To The Buskers

buy this title


track listing

1. Comin' Down
2. Superstar Tradesman
3. Same Jeans
4. Don't Tell Me
5. Skag Trendy
6. The Don
7. Face For The Radio
8. Wasted Little DJs
9. Gran's For Tea
10. Dance Into The Night
11. Claudia
12. Streetlights
13. Wasteland
14. Typical Time
A few years ago, you couldn't move for bands whose main claim to fame was that they were 'friends with The Libertines'. Some went onto bigger things (Razorlight), some sank without trace (The Others). But they all had that link to Pete and Carl intact.

At first glance, you'd suspect The View of being a typical 'post-Libertines' band, only two years too late. After all, they've got the link to Pete Doherty (they handed their demo to Doherty who then personally invited them to support Babyshambles), they've got the raw, punky songs and even have a number called Skag Trendy.

The differences are just as important though. The View aren't from Dalston, or even London - they're from Dundee, a fact which shines through in every song. And you get the impression listening to this superbly focused debut album that there's no chance of this lot imploding before they have a chance to take over the world.

Signed to the increasingly influential 1965 records and produced by Definitely Maybe producer Owen Morris, there's a definite buzz about The View - a feeling that this really is their moment. Even their website is entitled The View Are On Fire, which takes some degree of confidence.

It's a confidence that's well placed - Morris does an extremely good job here of transferring the band's extraordinary energy that's displayed live into the studio. So opening track Comin' Down soars in on an adrenaline fuelled rush, before a gloriously anthem guitar riff kicks off Superstar Tradesman. If you got your mate to stand on the dining room table and jump off, it would almost be like having The View play live in your front room.

Lead singer Kyle Falcolner makes no effort to hide his Scottish accent, which some may think is passe after 12 months or so of flat Yorkshire vowels in the charts, but just adds to the authentic atmosphere. Wasted Little DJs has a chorus that seems incomprehensible ("they're the glamourest blondes we ken" possibly?) but is still made to bellow along to at the top of your voice, Scottish or otherwise.

The band's lyrics deal with life in Dundee, in a similar vein to Arctic Monkeys' tales of Sheffield, be that wearing the same pair of jeans four days in a row (Same Jeans), the sad tale of a teenager lost to heroin in Skag Trendy ("He had a girlfriend she was very, very, very nice/Walks by him now, won't look at him twice"), or even finding too big a queue at the local chip shop in Gran's For Tea.

Those lyrics are matched, in the main part, by some superbly hummable tunes and choruses that stick in your head for weeks, if not months. While the singles that have been released so far are probably the best tracks (with the breezy, harmonica driven Same Jeans being the pick of the bunch), there's plenty more delights to be found in the early Oasis soundalike of Don't Tell Me and the excellent Face For The Radio, where a reflective, laid-back melody masks some vitriolic lyrics ("He watches Trainspotting, fifteen times a week, thinking it's making him oh so unique")

At fourteen tracks, Hats Off To The Buskers is possibly a bit overlong, and there are a couple of tracks during the second half of the album which could probably have been left off to give the record a more tighter focus. Yet there's enough talent here to suggest that the hype around The View at the moment is thoroughly justified - hats off to them indeed.

  share: 
Facebook | Digg | del.icio.us | more
Mercury Prize 2009 nominees
FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE SPEECH DEBELLE KASABIAN FRIENDLY FIRES
LA ROUX BAT FOR LASHES THE HORRORS GLASVEGAS
SWEET BILLY PILGRIM THE INVISIBLE LISA HANNIGAN LED BIB




out this week:
Julian Casablancas - Phrazes For The Young The Hidden Cameras - Origin: Orphan Weezer - Raditude
Luke Haines - 21st Century Man Espers - III Local Natives - Gorilla Manor
coming soon:
Martha Wainwright - Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, a Paris Robbie Williams - Reality Killed The Video Star Mariah Carey - Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel
Will Young - The Hits Joe Goddard - Harvest Festival The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Higher Than The Stars EP
recent releases:
Cheryl Cole - Three Words McAlmont & Nyman - The Glare Miike Snow - Miike Snow
Devendra Banhart - What Will Be Will Be Kings Of Convenience - Declaration Of Dependence Wolfmother - Cosmic Egg
Portico Quartet - Isla Annie - Don't Stop Whitney Houston - I Look To You
The Antlers - Hospice BEAK> - BEAK> Atlas Sound - Logos
Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport The Flaming Lips - Embryonic Shakira - She Wolf
more album reviews
TOP ARTICLES NOW
GIG: Shirley Bassey dazzles Camden

GIG: HEALTH slay 30 minutes

MORE GIG REVIEWS: Maps, Smokey Robinson, Editors, iLiKETRAiNS, Dizzee Rascal, Doves, The Big Pink, Soap&Skin, Girls, Robbie Williams...

ALBUM: Cheryl Cole: 3 Words

FESTIVAL: In The City 2009

INTERVIEW: Miike Snow on deeply darkly danceable music and why cold is good

RELATED ARTICLES
ALBUM:
The View - Which Bitch?

ALBUM:
The View - Hats Off To The Buskers

GIG:
The View @ KOKO, London

GIG:
The View @ Academy, Birmingham

GIG:
The View @ Luminaire, London

TRACK:
The View - The Don/Skag Trendy

TRACK:
The View - Same Jeans

TRACK:
The View - Superstar Tradesman

TRACK:
The View - Wasted Little DJs

EXTERNAL LINKS
The View



  more album reviews...



musicOMH
about us
contact
copyright
home
elsewhere
Twitter
Facebook
Last.fm
Soundcloud
MySpace
© 1999-2009 OMH