The Cribs
Selling a Vibe
PIAS
Getting tagged long ago as the biggest cult indie band in England was quite the tall tree to leap over. Yet since their start at the top of the 21st century, Yorkshire’s fizzy power-popping Jarman brothers have continued to make a starkly shambling and melodic brand of unassuming Replacements-meets-Orange-Juice melodies as The Cribs, with clever-still-straightforward personalized lyrics that are easy on the ears and soft on the soul. Glistening guitars, heartbeat rhythm-making arrangements, and quietly emotive twin harmonies—literally, as Gary and Ryan Jarman are twinnies—were at the heart of The Cribs from the very start.
With no reason to remove their tear-in-the-beer feel when it comes to forlorn storytelling now, Selling a Vibe songs such as “Brothers Won’t Break,” the call-and-response-driven “A Point Too Hard to Make,” and the psychic fugue state treatise “Looking for the Wrong Guy” are all epically anthemic without sounding overly big, which is quite something. Maybe give credit to Vibe producer Patrick Wimberly—the former Chairlift rhythm section being among giant former Crib studio paters such Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, Nick Launay, Dave Fridmann, Steve Albini, and Ric Ocasek—for both opening wide and tightening up the band’s taut instrumental skills and melody-making.
Vibe moments such as “Never the Same” and “Summer Seizures”—respectively a Beatles-esque nerve jangler and a pensively undulating power ballad—might have been made overly complex and woefully wide in someone else’s hands. Wimberly made the trio sound like a trio, and The Cribs made Wimberly look like a hero.
