The quickest thing The Cribs have ever recorded, reads the album’s press release. An angry stamp of cynicism, critique and condemnation against bands that sell out. Now into the meat and bones of a 15-year career, it’s nice to know a band that can comfortably pin their musical stripes to their sleeve rather than always run from their own shadow. The album, which was recorded with the demigod of punk-rock that he has become, Steve Albini, was done and dusted within five days, despite being six years in the making. With four tracks penned throughout the sessions for 2011’s In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull, 24–7 Rock Star Shit is a guts’n’all punk album – those four tracks unearthed a sound that didn’t quite fit their 2011 effort, nor their 2015 follow-up For All My Sisters. Hence they were shelved for a rainy day –  a rainy day that seemed to be forecast for August 2017.

Speaking about the new album, bassist Gary Jarman says, “We’ve been in a band a long time – this is our seventh record – and we’ve been doing this for 15 years now,” he continues, referencing their process this time around, “we’ve got a dedicated fanbase who’ve been with us for a long time and we thought, why not just cut out all the extraneous stuff for once? This way we bypass as much of the usual protocol as possible – we just want to get it to people as quickly and easily as we can.” The velocity that Gary outlines here is something that breathes throughout the album, from the album’s opener ‘Give Good Time’ through to the desperately anxious ‘Year of Hate’, a track that finds vocals sparring toe-to-toe with an amphetamine rhythm.

The album moves with ferocity and, for the most part, it manages to gallop past too much monotony. It breezes by, ticking off other resolute boxes: a succulent melody embedded within ‘In Your Place’ – one of the album’s better songs that manages to place a hook into the restless overtones – and the acoustic saunter of ‘Sticks Not Twigs’. But this is largely an album made for the true fans of the band – by that, I mean fans that want an album akin to their original sound, away from the niceties of For All My Sisters and the indie-pop of Johnny Marr’s input on Ignore The Ignorant, perhaps the sound they initially fell in love with. Unapologetically punk, much in the fashion of the band’s self-titled 2004 debut and sophomore album and breakthrough release, The New Fellas. Tracks such as ‘Dendrophobia’ embark upon loose, thumping pseudo-grunge and ‘What Have You Done For Me?’ which etches tunefulness into a juggernaut of overdrive.

It’s mixed results though, occasionally the tracks fall too close to one another. ‘Partisan’ barely pushes the boat further from the shore which ‘What Have You Done For Me?’ set sail from, it also sounds bizarrely like the band’s previous release, ‘Don’t You Wanna Be Relevant?’. Isn’t it strange how bands can rehash their finer moments time and again? ’Broken Arrow’ too, is hardly going to ignite too much interest from new listeners with its fairly lazy outing into punk-rock, posing nothing particularly noteworthy when compared to the album’s feistier outings. A surprising standout though sits with the slightly different ‘Dead at the Wheel’, a track that cuts a closer seam to that of the later Pixies material and finds a little more tenderness caught between the gates of feedback. It finds the Jarman brother trading angst for sensitivity, something that when put in contrast to the rest of the album feels quite refreshing, despite its slightly juxtaposing mood.

Taking all into account, it’s refreshing to see a band that no longer fear their sound and you know what, as clichéd as it may sound, a band  that refuses to sell out. After all, I’m sure they still vehemently stand against the idea of a luxury tour bus, always finding a closer home to the back of sticky LDV van. It’s not an album that will win over previous haters but hey, they’re 15 years in now and when putting together live shows like that witnessed for the anniversary of Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever, who really cares?

Tom Churchill

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