The Cribs, Barrowland, Glasgow
Jonathan Geddes, Four stars
This show was a birthday night for two thirds of the Cribs, but the passing of time is not being met with a move to life in the slow lane. Six albums into a career that has outlasted many a contemporary, their gigs remain fast and frantic, with pints arcing through the air before a note was struck.
There were few gimmicks. The Wakefield siblings have never embraced either onstage pyrotechnics or wild posturing, save the odd pose from guitarist Ryan Jarman and moments where Ross, the drummer and youngest brother, stood on top of his kit and battered away. Instead they simply rolled through tune after tune with the frenetic energy of men making a desperate surge for freedom.
Little different from before, then, but there can be no doubt that their newest clutch of songs, For All My Sisters, lends itself to the live arena more satisfyingly than their previous couple of records. If those albums were stodgy at times then tracks from Sisters provided lean power-pop, including the crisp summery tone of Burning For No One and pop-tastic ooh oohs on Different Angle.
At times you wish the group would push themselves beyond their scrappy guitar sound, though, and two striking moments arrived when they did just that - the spoken word rumble of Be Safe sounded tremendously ominous, and an acoustic Shoot The Poets had a pleasing lilt more fulfilling than a few of their more generic punky numbers.
Yet the majority had both messy raucousness and melodic style, with the roaring chorus of You're Gonna Lose Us, Our Bovine Public's communal anarchy and the driving rhythm of set-closer Pink Snow emphatically reaffirming why they have had staying power.
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