Maybe they didn’t get enough sleep. Maybe the airline lost their luggage. Maybe someone forgot to clear the backstage area of brown M&Ms. Whatever happened, The Cribs arrived at San Francisco’s Popscene in some kind of mood. The Wakefield, England band of brothers–guitar playing twins Ryan and Gary Jarman, 26, and little brother Ross, 22, on drums–quickly blasted through the highlights from last year’s fantastic Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever album, pausing only to snarl at the crowd through indecipherable accents.
The greasy trio’s third release and major label debut was produced by Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos, who managed to give its shouty choruses and spiky punk riffs a sleek pop sheen that brought on comparisons to everyone from the Buzzcocks to the Strokes. In recent months The Cribs have been recruited to tour with the reunited Sex Pistols and were joined onstage by Sonic Youth’s Lee Renaldo, who also appears on the album, as well as former Smiths/current Modest Mouse guitarist Johnny Marr, who has been collaborating with them on material for their next album.
For a group with such unbelievable ambition, the Popscene set felt like it could have been derailed at any moment by stupid adolescent attitude. “Our Bovine Public” got two half-hearted attempts before it was finally allowed to die under a barrage of hoarse wailing, “Girls Like Mystery” was rendered largely tuneless and “Mirror Kisses” was preceded with some mighty cynical banter.
But as soon as the band finished rolling through a sloppy cover of The Replacements’ “Bastards of Young” they suddenly snapped out of it. Latest single “I’m a Realist” saw the twins brilliantly trading off vocal duties, as the rest of the songs fell back into proper speed and the mood on the stage visibly lightened. The perfunctory high-speed yelps were replaced by actual singing and actual riffs, while Ryan–the one that looks a bit like a chubby Jeremy Piven–victoriously ended the night by launching himself into the crowd.
