There is a rambunctious spirit underpinning all that The Cribs do. A free-wheeling, hardly under control energy which makes each song feel like some Heath-Robinson contraption; brilliant in concept, but so hastily nailed together that it may well fling itself to pieces at any given minute.
Yet what makes The Cribs worth our time is somehow it never quite does. Although when Mirror Kissers breaks down to a short nursery rhyme interlude there is concern that it may be a terminal failure, but somehow they gaffer-tape over the cracks and just about drag the steaming chassis over the finishing line.
Because when you’ve got great little melodies and such killer hooks, who wants to apply layers and layers of gloss? Just write it, record it and fuck off onto the next one. Where some bands spend hours in a studio trying to be something else, The Cribs are exactly what they appear. It sounds young, carefree and borderline drunk because they are young, carefree and (probably) drunk. And hooray for that.
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