The Rifles - Great Escape [Album]

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My favourite Rifles story - not the one about the dippers making hay every night on their last tour - dates back to July 2006. On the strength of 'Repeated Offender' - which was the feel-good indie hit of that month - me and a few mates went down to the Cockpit to check out whether the London quartet had much more about them than meets the eye. As it turned out I had way too much Peroni to remember if that was the case, but I did make a note of their support, a diminutive trio with a great line in rabble rousing and an obvious debt to Oasis. As they left the lead singer bid farewell with the line "Right, now we're off back to sunny Coventry." You can guess the rest.

As we know since then The Enemy have sold half a million records, although I like everybody else baulk at Tom Clarke not so much rejecting, as wiping his arse on where he came from. Fate's been less kind to the band they supported, Joel Stoker & co. having to make do with little more than an "also ran" medal.

The dung heap of unit shifting aside, their debut album "No Love Lost" made no secret of the band's admiration for The Jam, but at least in 'Local Boy,' 'Peace & Quiet' and 'She's Got Standards' it had a clutch of tunes to move your Sta-Prest to. Great Escape is less obviously Weller influenced but no better for it, only proving that they've widened their tribute band repertoire to include Kaiser Chiefs (The Great Escape) and The Cribs (Sometimes). Worse still, the loser diatribes of 'Toe Rag' cross over from maudlin to self pity, whilst the petrified knees up contrivances of 'Romeo And Julie' unmask them as the bastard sons of Chas n' Dave. Only with the spaghetti trumpets of 'The General' do they display any signs of life.

Look, 'We'll Live And Die In These Towns' might have been Stella'd up over optimism for those most white of van, but at least it had a message. "Great Escape" - like it's predecessor - is as throw away as a losing scratch card, with about as much intrinsic entertainment value.