The Cribs

Last month I went to Madrid. There was a guy working at the hostel who used to knock on all the doors mid-evening and tell everyone that he was leading a bar-crawl at about 10pm. We went out with him twice and he never took us to more than one bar each night. It was obvious after the first night that he was just doing this to meet girls, so we went back a second time because it was, to be fair to him, a pretty good way of meeting girls. Anyway, we were sitting in this grotty bar and talking to some girls from Barcelona (also from the hostel) when the guy decided to ask us to tell him some good British bands to check out. I was completely smashed at this point, but I managed to write down 'The Cribs' on a scrap of paper.

I really hope he looked them up because I couldn't be more evangelical about The Cribs. In case you don't know them, the Jarman brothers hail from Wakefield, England. Ryan (lead) and Gary (bass) are twins; Ross (drums) is their younger brother. They're an intense live experience: never polished, usually intoxicated and always undisputed champions of catchy 3-minute pop songs. Oh yeah, and this year they somehow got Johnny Marr from The Smiths to join them full-time. The four of them are currently working on what will be the band's fourth studio album. Here's a taste from each of their previous ones, plus a Smiths cover:

The Cribs - You Were Always The One (mp3)
The Cribs - Mirror Kissers (mp3)
The Cribs - Girls Like Mystery (mp3)
The Cribs feat. Johnny Marr - Panic (Live at the NME Awards 2008) (mp3)