Laters Johnny Marr! I mean, he’s Johnny Marr, but he really didn’t do anything for The Cribs’ sound. Steve Albini [as producer] has been a much better move for the band, and it appears working with him has encouraged the Jarmans to indulge all their ‘In Utero’-era Nirvana fantasies on ‘In The Belly of the Brazen Bull‘, a great thing.
Those drums, those trademark Steve Albini drums are incredible. The guitars are as prone to wild bursts of feedback, as ever, but lurking deep in there, there’s a more polished edge to The Cribs now, the vocals are neat and tidy, the rhythm tight and pounding. However, we raise the same issue as with Cribs albums in the past, in that they never deliver more than two great singles on any one album.
Where ‘Come On Be A No One’ and ‘Chi-Town’ burst through the ceiling, nothing else quite manages to reach those peaks. ‘Glitters Like Gold’ gets things off to a good start and ‘Pure O’ stinks of anthemic teen angst, but the rest kind of sounds like, well, album tracks. Good ones, but still album tracks.