The Cribs: Ignore The Ignorant

What do you do when your indieness is in danger of affecting your ability to cross over successfully into the mainstream? What do you do when your famously rough sound is in need of a polish up? What do you do when you’re running out of ideas for the guitar-bass-drums combo?

Well, if you’re the Cribs, you sign up Johnny Marr. Reams of words have been written about the former Smiths guitarist joining the band, with the consensus seeming to be that he must be suffering a midlife-crisis to want to join the Wakefield punksters, and that his presence has stunted the band’s DIY ethics.

The band are of course not averse to bringing in surprising fresh blood – Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand produced their last record, Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever – but the inclusion of Marr as a full-time member has raised eyebrows across the world of indie.

But if you look past the obvious and peer deep into the depths of Ignore The Ignorant, you find that it’s a change that is for the most part, a very good thing for all parties.

Despite their dominance in their field, the band’s sound was growing tired, and they were due taking a risk. Marr’s presence has a steadying effect on them, with crashing punk-rock evolving into melodic indie tunage throughout the record.

Lead single Cheat On Me is probably the best indication of the new direction, a gigantic chorus, backed by chirpy, sharp guitar from Marr. Marr’s lines and ideas stand out all too clearly, with Ryan’s guitar simply keeping time, rather than providing the angled riffs of the first three albums. The development gives the singer the chance to actually sing, and it comes as a surprise how melodic his voice is when he puts his mind to it. We’ve grown used to Ryan’s vocals being delivered in yelps or screams or shouts or screeches, whereas on Ignore The Ignorant, we hear him caress his words out much more carefully.

It’s not all great though. The album fades terribly; with a handful of dire, dull ballads clouding what was previously shaping up to be one of the best British records of the year. Fortunately, the sheer brilliance of the first half of the album more than makes up for its later failures. We Were Aborted rhymes “masturbation” with “fellation” (amazing), City Of Bugs goes all epic and Dovesish (amazing) and Hari Kari is the band at their best (yep, amazing).

The danger was that this new found maturity would dim the band’s vitality, that decamping to LA to record the album with Nick Launey would render them impotent and unimportant. But in moving away from the bedroom project, lo-fi sound, the brothers have carved themselves out a new opening, a new position in the higher echelons of modern British rock music. At the peak of their powers, the Cribs are exactly the type of band that inspire kids to pick up guitars and form their own bands. And if the youngsters learn from the Cribs’ liberal, punk stylings too, then all the better.

Ignore The Ignorant opens doors for the Cribs. No longer will they be pigeonholed as part-timers, relying on tabloid exploits such as Ryan’s back injury at the NME Awards, to garner media attention. It might not be a record that will be fondly remembered for years to come compared to its predecessors, but it will be thought of as the first in a long line of albums made by the Cribs/Marr partnership, a pairing that looks like becoming ever more fruitful as the foursome grow together as a band.

This review was written for TMM.

Arctic Monkeys announce winter arena tour

Arctic Monkeys will embrace their step up to the big time with a tour of huge arenas in November.

The Sheffield rockers, who today celebrate the start of their second week atop the album charts with their third record, Humbug (which we adore), will begin in lucky Liverpool on Friday 13 November before wrapping up the tour in Dublin two weeks later.

The tour is set to be an indication of big the band can get. Other bands have turned to arenas as they look to expand their live sound, and then struggled for somewhere to go next. It will be interesting to see how Arctic Monkeys cope with the step up.

The dates in full:

NOVEMBER

13 LIVERPOOL, Echo Arena
14 SHEFFIELD, Arena
16 NEWCASTLE, MetroRadio Arena
18 LONDON, Wembley Arena
20 BIRMINGHAM, NIA
21 MANCHESTER, MEN Arena
22 NOTTINGHAM, Trent FM Arena
24 GLASGOW, SECC
25 BELFAST, The Odyssey
26 DUBLIN, The O2

This article was written for TMM.

Jambothejourno seeks work: Part 5

After the blind hope that was the deluge of applications I submitted throughout August, the arrival of September has been a depressing realisation of the summer's passing. It's now three months since I finished my degree, and I'm no nearer to finding full-time work as a journalist. I've applied for around 25 jobs, had only one interview, and received only two or three rejection letters.

I'm starting to think I might be kidding myself that I'm in the right industry. Clearly, something is stopping employers from wanting to give me a job, although I'm lost as to what it could be. I have a decent amount of experience through work placements, I relished taking on projects during my degree, and I have four NCTJ industry standard qualifications, including shorthand, already under my belt, as well as my degree. However, I did hear that the Yorkshire Post job I applied for a couple of months ago had over 250 other people going for it.

As if to compound my misery, in the last fortnight or so there has been a distinct drying up of entry-level journalism posts coming up. One particular website sourcethatjob.com has just five listings – with none of them paid. It's pretty grim reading.

The local press is no happier a hunting ground either. The regional daily paper didn't have a single job listing in it this morning, and the twice-weekly town paper is down to around a third of a page on jobs each issue. And almost all of those are for carers or cleaners or factory packers.

A friend of mine who had been unlucky with redundancies over the last eighteen months or so, and has been in and out of work, recommended I sign on, but with the part-time bar work I'm doing I would only be eligible for around £10 a week support, depending on my shifts. And, for some reason, applying for Jobseekers' Allowance feels like admitting that I'm incapable of getting myself a job. Which of course I am, but I don't think I'm ready to admit it by taking that step yet.

There is one job I'm applying for – at the Isle of Man newspaper group. Leaving the country might seem a bit of an extreme reaction but I loved the place when I visited on holiday as a teenager. Rather than just e-mailing my CV and a covering letter in like most other jobs, I had to fill in an application form, although this is mostly just transferring sections from my CV onto the page.

Consequently, I've spent hours and hours researching the island and the company, as well as tweaking my supporting documentation note, to see if there's anything I can tell them to make me stand out. I've wanted every job I've gone for, give or take a couple of hit-and-hope type applications, but I really, really want this one. And if nothing comes of it, I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do next. Without wanting to sound too melodramatic, it feels like this is last chance saloon territory.

This piece was written for the Guardian.

Offset festival completes line-up

Clinic, Metronomy and Wild Beasts have been added to the line-up for this weekend’s Offset festival, in Hainault Forest, just outside that London town.

Wild Beasts will headline the Clash stage on Sunday night, while Clinic will perform before headliners the Horrors on the same evening. Metronomy headline the second stage on Saturday night.

Tickets are still available for the artrock event, from See, at a bargainous £55 for the weekend, with camping included.

Other bands on the bill include the Futureheads, the Slits, Future of the Left, the Chapman Family, The XX and Bombay Bicycle Club.

This piece was written for TMM.

Burnley: David Nugent move was a huge surprise

I honestly thought we'd done our deals. I couldn't see anyone leaving and I didn't think we'd be able to bring anyone in either. Hull's Daniel Cousin was the one the papers were linking us to, but that one was never likely once Benjani turned down a move to Humberside.

But Owen Coyle pulled a rabbit out of the hat in the form of a 24-year-old England international (and goal scorer). It's easy to forget that David Nugent picked up an international cap, scoring a stolen tap in on his one and only appearance against Andorra. This was before his move to Portsmouth though, where his career has stalled somewhat.

Nugent always looked a class above at Preston North End in the Championship, but his credentials at the top level were always going to be in doubt. He's not particularly quick, strong or prolific. But he is creative and a good finisher. I'd compare him to David Healy, in that he's not really had a fair crack at the Premier League whip. I imagine he will be a regular starter for us, so it will be interesting to see how he copes with the adjustment.

We almost signed Nugent from Bury a few years back, but he chose to go to North End instead. That makes him the third former North Ender in our squad, and he joins Graham Alexander as an ex-Lilywhite that turned us down earlier in his career. If he's half as successful as Alexander, we'll have made a cracking signing.

It's low risk for us too, signing him on a six-month loan. If he's doing well, we can sort out a permanent deal in the January transfer window, but if he struggles, we can get rid and replace him with someone else.

We saw on Saturday how tough goals are going to be to score away from home. Chelsea outclassed us in every department with one of the best displays of fluid attacking football I've ever seen. The midfield diamond sparkled, but the full backs were most impressive, bombing up and down the flanks, causing all sorts of problems for the men charged with tracking the runners inside. If it had been another team on the end of the hiding they dished out, I would have felt honoured to have seen it.

But despite the relative ease of the match for Chelsea, we could and should have led early on, and then who knows what could have happened. Martin Paterson missed a glorious chance just ten minutes in, and the match could have taken on a completely new complexion had he not pulled his shot wide.

We seem to have learned our lesson from the slack marking at set pieces at Stoke that cost us, but we must also start burying our chances, especially on the road. We won't get many. It's Anfield next for the Clarets, after an international break we'll hopefully come through unscathed.

It's never made any sense to me to have managers rushing around sorting deals the day before two weeks off, and it would be a disaster for us if Steven Fletcher or Martin Paterson came back from duty with an injury. But Liverpool are more likely to have someone pick up a knock playing for their country than us! They've looked shaky so far, the complete opposite to Chelsea's assured displays, and if we perform to our best, we could come up with another shock result.

This piece was written for Fanzone TimesOnline.

Dark Sparks - We Are Just Flies/Crying in the Spotlight

Dark Sparks are a curious bunch: falsetto vocals compete with silly guitar solos without the end result ever straying into Darkness territory, with Muse an all-too obvious influence.

Sheffield isn’t exactly where you would guess the band to come from. There’s no knowing pop pastiche as found in Arctic Monkeys and the Long Blondes and there’s no carefully crafted couplets from Pulp or Richard Hawley.

This is the kind of band that Grammatics paved the way for. Deliberately overblown and with far too much going on, it’s hard to love them although the songs are perfectly listenable.

The nonsensical lyrics of ‘We Are Just Flies’ cover up what is actually a thrilling ride, once it gets going. Guitars and drums come crashing in midway through the song and for a while it’s quite exciting, until the repeated lyrics just get too annoying and the vocal begins to grate too.

‘Crying in the Spotlight’ begins with an almost chord-for-chord recollection of ‘Paradise City’ by Guns n’ Roses before turning into another messy sub-Editors piece of dark electronic rock.

There is potential in Dark Sparks, but there’s a long way to go yet.

This review was written for Muso's Guide.

Nugent could be final piece of puzzle

I think I can speak for many Clarets when I say how surprised I was at the sudden announcement of the signing of David Nugent, on loan from Portsmouth for six months, with a view to a permanent deal.

All the talk was of Daniel Cousin of Hull joining Burnley, a tall, combative striker that would hassle and harry defenders. A bigger Martin Paterson, if you will.

But instead Owen Coyle surprised us all by pulling Nugent out of the hat. The striker is well known to Clarets having been Preston North End's star player for two or three years, and always seemed to bring out his best in games against us.

The move to Portsmouth probably came at the wrong time for him. £5m looked like a lot of money when the transfer happened, but PNE always get top buck for their players and Nugent was no exception.

He was unlucky in some respects with the managerial merry-go-round at Fratton Park, as well as Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe forming a lethal partnership together, that he didn't get a fair crack of the whip. Many of his appearances in Portsmouth blue came from the flank, and even more from the bench.

At only 24 his best years should be ahead of him, although it's probably not too harsh to suggest this could be his last chance to show hiw quality in the top flight. If he fails at Burnley, he will almost certainly play out his career in the Football League.

How he fits into Owen Coyle's plans remains to be seen. I see Nugent as a similar player to Robbie Blake. He's diminutive but can hold the ball, uses it intelligently, and is capable of magical strikes at goal. Whether he turns out to be the long-term replacement for the little magician is unlikely, but he certainly adds something extra to our striking options.

Where this leaves Jay Rodriguez is something Owen Coyle will have to consider closely. Rodriguez scored five from the bench last season and had we not been promoted would have played a major part this season. With Fletcher and now Nugent coming in, he finds himself down the pecking order, and unable to make the matchday squad of 18. A loan spell could do him the world of good, as it did for Kyle Lafferty, who found his scoring boots at Darlington.

But the move suits all parties. Portsmouth get another player off their wage bill, we get another attacking option, a low-risk one at that, and Nugent gets another shot at the big time, at a similar club to Preston, where he was so successful.

And if anyone can get the best of him, it's the man who rejuvenated the careers of Brian Jensen, Clarke Carlisle, Steven Caldwell and Robbie Blake to name but a few - Owen Coyle.

This article was written for FansOnline.