The Cribs – In the Belly of the Brazen Bull

These are bleak times for the mid-Noughties’ bright young things: The Libertines are a spent force, Razorlight have collapsed under Jonny Borrell’s gargantuan ego, and the Kaiser Chiefs are more often treading water than predicting riots. Wakefield-raised trio The Cribs are yet to rival the NME ubiquity of their contemporaries, but their sharp blasts of rugged indie rock – once bolstered by the addition of Johnny Marr – were a leap ahead of mid-weights like The Others.

Album five, In the Belly of the Brazen Bull, finds the Jarman brothers retreading familiar ground. Built around the band’s calling-card of barbed riffs and shouty vocals, Chi-Town and Come On And Be a Noone ring out as misty-eyed odes to simpler times. Much of the album follows suit, vying between the jangly Cure-lite balladry of Butterflies and the meandering clang of Pure O. This is the sound of a band caught in a time warp; sadly, for The Cribs there’s no going back.