Wakefield natives (the Jarman brothers like to remind us of their home town roots almost as frequently as Omid Djalili likes to remind us he's Iranian) The Cribs are a band I've been resisting for some time now. I always admired their stringent DIY aesthetic and the way they aspired to be the antitheses of modern land-fill indie bands, in a way they appeared almost like a British version of The Replacements (they even covered Bastards Of Young). However to my ears the songs just never lived up to the hype and regardless of how exciting their live shows were, when it comes to pop music (and as much as they would live to profess to the contrary we are dealing with pop music here) the song is everything. Thankfully the Cribs seemed to learn a lesson from their transatlantic friends Modest Mouse last time around with their 2007 album 'Men's Need's, Woman's Need's Whatever' and managed to graft some pleasing melodies and song structures into their trademarked, ramshackle sound. This time they even have ex mousekateer (and Smiths legend) Johnny Marr on board so there are no excuses!

The albums opening numbers offer a grand first impression with Marr's glistening, circular guitar patterns adding a dimension to The Cribs they lacked before. The Jarman brothers (I honestly couldn't tell the two voices apart) are far from melodic singers but there is a definite bile and grit to their voices which lends weight to tepid teen-angst statements such as "mid-shelf masturbation leaves a smear on half the nation." Lyrically the Jarman's don't seem to really know what they want to be saying, there are clever lines scattered throughout the record but half of the songs seem to be nothing more than po-faced rallies against 'selling out' (certainly ironic considering their last album was produced by Franz Ferdinand). Fair enough it's obviously a topic they care passionately about, but there are surely more troubling things to be angry about? Anyway It's an angry record vocally but a pretty restrained one musically (no doubt thanks in no small part to Mr Marr) with guitars plinking and jangling where they once twanged and thrashed. Maybe the Cribs are mellowing with age (Gary Jarman supposedly met the 45 year old Marr at a vegetarian barbecue) but to my ears it suits them, it's a much more American sounding record if anything, taking it's cues more from bands like Pavement and The Pixies than The Stone Roses and (as odd as it may be to say) The Smiths. The production too (courtesy of Nick Cave mainstay Nick Launay) manages to flit a pleasing balance between lo-fi grunge and sparkle with a clear, punchy mix which never succumbs to gloss or over-compression.

So it's a grand first impression with epic early highlight 'City Of Bugs' even showing a darker side to the band nobody would have picked up on from their early releases (ignore the bad Thurston Moore impression though). However as the album passes it's half way mark the winning melodies and defiant attitude falls by the way-side as we descend into (and they would no doubt hate to hear this) landfill-indie territory. It's a crying shame but even after multiple listens the record sounds front-loaded and it reaches an indifferent zenith with 'Victim Of Mass Production,' a song desperately in need of a singular idea, it's one of the most listless and boring indie-pop songs I've heard this decade. 'Save Your Secrets' almost hints at the Replacements drunken balladry and 'Stick To Yr Guns' offers a suitably atmospheric climax but neither really catch the imagination.

In all a decent attempt at broadening their horizons and the band finally have a handful of decent songs to call their own, but in doing so the Cribs might just have lost what made them such an easy band to admire in the first place.