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The Strokes The Strokes The Strokes The Strokes The Strokes

-> | the land of common sense | 04/04/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"
THE STROKES? Good. Have to keep that up. Promise you'll never read a review of this band without hearing the S word. Up tempo garage rock that doesn't suck? "Check". Deep gravelly voiced singer? "Check". British lineage? "Che-wait, are The Strokes-I mean, I thought they were-oh! Good one!"

Check 1- The most surprising thing about this band is that they don't sound pitiful and helpless, like most imitators are want to do. Completely unpolished, completely angular, and completely innocent makes the Jarman's jolly lads. The three brothers that comprise The Cribs will unfortunately be met at every turn with sneers and smirks from those members of the music community who, upon realizing the vast extent of their intellectual superiority to all others, will "knowingly" remark to their buddies, "Hey" (dramatic pause while waiting for attention) "I liked them better when they were called... The Strokes!" (followed by overly emphatic knee slap, followed by self congratulatory laughter at ability to turn intellectual superiority into highly comical, socially relevant joke)." The fact that these same people said the same thing about The Hives, The Vines, The Libertines, Phantom Planet, Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, and the Velvet Underground (not realizing the irony of such statements) makes them fun to be around.

Check 2- Yea, the one singer, Ryan, sounds like a much deeper voiced version of good old Julian, and the guitars too sometimes, and-oh drat! There I go again. Who am I reviewing anyways, The Strokes or this other band? Why don't I just start a new checklist, which might come in handy for all future reviews-Reasons Why (insert band name here) Don't Sound Like The Strokes. Ok, for one, they sometimes do this thing where a couple of them sing at the same time, which is really neat. Then, this other time, they have this circus organ thing that jumps in and out of the song. And, overall, they tend to make the Strokes' "lo-fi" sound downright polished. Also, they really are from England, which is where we all know The Strokes whish they were from (pesky birth certificates!).

So, at least we know that The Stro-I mean, The Cribs are good enough to form their own band based upon a unique band identity without having to worry about any extraneously annoying comparisons to other bands. I mean wouldn't it be crazy if you had to, hypothetically, follow the lineage of "sounds like" back to the dawn of time? We would just end up comparing every band to the noises of the Big Bang during the formation of the universe! Good thing we don't do that, then.

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Good live, good on cd

E. Chang | D.C. | 07/24/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"well i'll keep this short and simple. I had never even heard of these guys before i saw them open for the kaiser chiefs a few days ago. they are an opening band that i would certainly go and see if they ever tour by themselves. many of their songs are addictively catchy, some of them are thoughtful, and all of them are super high energy. good job to england for producing another quality band."

Great guitar pop

Dave R. | Columbus, OH USA | 10/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is wonderful record, filled with catchy songs and great guitar figures. It's obvious that the Cribs and the Strokes have the same influences. But instead of New York attitude, the Cribs have a fresh and (almost) innocent take on life. The production is very simple -- I'll bet their live shows sound just like the record."