With each album,
the Cribs have gotten a little sharper and more focused, and nowhere is this clearer than on the brilliantly named
Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever. For their major label debut, the band enlisted
Franz Ferdinand's
Alex Kapranos as producer. It's a good match: while he doesn't impose too much of
Franz's clockwork precision on the band,
Kapranos reins in
the Cribs' more shambling tendencies just enough.
Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever kicks off with a slew of bouncy, angular songs about awkward relationships and killer crushes that sound like state-of-the-art British indie circa the late 2000s. In particular,
"Our Bovine Public"'s ridiculously catchy melody and punchy drums feel like the results of an experiment to fuse together
Maximo Park,
the Futureheads, and
Good Shoes in some secret lab.
"Girls Like Mystery" and
"I'm a Realist" (which states, bluntly, "I'm an indecisive piece of sh*t") follow suit with more witty lyrics, sweet harmonies, and rousing choruses. However, as
Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever unfolds,
the Cribs broaden their horizons. Their long standing love of American indie music crops up frequently:
Ryan Jarman's yelping vocals evoke
Weezer's
Rivers Cuomo on "Moving Pictures," while jaunty, vulnerable songs about emptiness like "I've Tried Everything" and "My Life Flashed Before My Eyes" would fit right into
the Strokes' discography. Elevated by a poetic rant by
Sonic Youth's
Lee Ranaldo, "Be Safe" sounds, in the best possible way, like some great lost
alt-rock song from 1995. It's easily the best song on the album, which is kind of a shame since
the Cribs (probably) can't recruit
Ranaldo to be a full-time member. Fortunately, the tracks that follow it -- especially
"Shoot the Poets," the pretty, slightly twangy acoustic song that closes the album -- show that
the Cribs' music can't be typecast quite as easily as earlier songs suggested. Some of
the Cribs' most immediate and widest-ranging music,
Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever reflects a band on the brink of mainstream success. ~ Heather Phares