Five of the best: The Cribs

Image: The Cribs 

There was once a generation that wore tight jeans against the norm and the archetypal dingey club sound was indie laced with buckets of sweat. If we were to draw comparison to the present day, you'd be listening to deep math-rock and shuffling like a prick in a pair of chelsea boots.  

Alongside its great flagbearers like The Strokes, Antidotes era Foals and Franz Ferdinand, one band crucial to the indie disco and more-so indie rock in its blossoming were The Cribs.

Without doubt the genre became over-saturated circa '07; you couldn't escape a noodley guitar line on the radio and only a handful of outfits have sustained past being shelved on a nostalgic Spotify playlist.  

The Cribs were and still are far from that. Formed between the three Jarman brothers, they were later joined for a period by Johnny Marr.

He later left the band in 2011 leaving the original trio, who as recently as 2015 worked a further hook-heavy wedge of raw enjoyment in the form of sixth album For All My Sisters. 

Not long back they announced a "mini-festival" of their own featuring Thurston Moore and Pulled Apart By Horses on their home-patch of Leeds - not too far from Wakefield were the band originate.

In recognition of their continued greatness, we pull five of the band's not so obvious tracks to mark a landscape of their soaring career. 

'Another Number' (2004)

After they initially released as a split 7" on Leeds based Squirrel Records, its A-side tracks 'You and I' and 'Baby Don't Sweat' helped magnetize a heap of major labels to their sound.

From the very first tracks of their forming, The Cribs have stuck by their guns and traded in the same trademark lo-fi currency.

Eventually they signed to Wichita, dropping 'Another Number' on their debut album - a firm crowd pleaser and the initial scalpel that etched The Cribs into the brain's memory capacity of many. 

'Hey Scenesters' (2005)

One of the undisputed kings of the indie disco, echoing "Hey darling, hey hey darling" into your neighbouring voyager of the lager swamped floor will never be erased from its unwritten rulebook.

It was directed at Brixton kids who only turned up at their gig to make them look cool, you know those kind of people who are currently running a cereal cafe.

Placing in NME's top indie anthems of all time, the track arrived via Edwyn Collins produced The New Fellas alongside another blockbuster in 'Mirror Kissers'. 

'I'm A Realist' (2007)

It's a shoot-out between this, 'Our Bovine Public' and 'Men's Needs' as the representative for the Alex Kapranos produced Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever, and for various reasons we could have picked either.

'I'm A Realist' though, recalls the culture at the time: a flailing stockpile of commercially driven bands was mounting and Ryan addressed it as a bigger problem than global warming when speaking to a Glastonbury crowd. 

The draw to this song is the sarcastic self-reflective lyrics against a statement that could be viewed as elitist. After all, The Cribs were the most vital and more so genuine punk rock band operating at that time and rightfully the genre was leaning towards self-destruction.   

'City Of Bugs' (2009)

Unlike anything that had came before it, this song, taken from 2009 album Ignore The Ignorant, nods towards the dreamy depths of post-hardcore and the grungey sounds of Seattle.

Now sporting Johnny Marr, an evolution in the band's sound was emerging through pop directed hits like 'We Share The Same Skies' which helped align them with the mainstream while still championing their roots. 

'Come On Be A No-One' (2013)

After a three year hiatus due to the band waiting for the commercial bubble to pop so that they could focus on tackling the charts with authority again, they released the Steve Albini produced In The Belly of the Brazen Bull.

The band's most impressionable cut from the record, 'Come On Be A No-One' cast a net of gritty noise, staying true to the intentions of spearing down mainstream pop culture

Like the preceeding choices, it helped inform Payola, a double-sided collection of the band's greatest hits. Ultimately, each of its 40 songs solidified the fact that The Cribs are one of the most influential and consistent rock bands of the past decade and a half. 

The Cribs headline Camden Rocks on Saturday 4th June - tickets available via the box below.

Read: Top 10 live music events in the north this April

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