Night Network may not be the 12 tracks which would shake the person who doesn’t like The Cribs out of their most curious position. But it is 12 more assertions of greatness from a band who you really should like.
Far from being the exercise in kicking and screaming that it might have been, is instead a study in elegance in the face of adversity. The Cribs are back.
This is a tight, focused, powerful effort by one of the most underrated bands in the world – and certainly one of the finest bands to come from these shores in the past twenty years. Night Network is a minor masterpiece.
The resulting 12 songs, written in drummer Ross Jarman's garage over a 2018 Christmas family get-together, returns the group to their early sound, a chaotic bundle of charm and romance, realism and poppy experiment.
In a world of instant gratification, Night Network is an album that benefits from close and repeated plays. A little more restrained than I was expecting perhaps, as a whole the album actually felt a tad underwhelming the first time round.
A career highlight filled with well-earned warmth, Night Network is exactly the kind of album the Cribs should be making as they near their 20th anniversary.
Night Network is the first Cribs album the Jarmans have produced themselves, and they dial in the sharp-edged indie-rock sound that characterized the bracing guitars and punchy rhythm of The Cribs’ earlier records. It’s in the songwriting that things sometimes fall apart.
Night Network isn’t a bad album, but it's not a particularly memorable one, either.
#19 | / | Gigwise |
#26 | / | NME |
#29 | / | musicOMH |
#31 | / | Riff Magazine |
#43 | / | Far Out Magazine |
#100 | / | God Is In The TV |