The Fratellis - Creepin Up The Backstairs Single Review

The Fratellis
EP
Nomadic
Released: 13th March
Review

Hailing from Glasgow you would expect The Fratellis to be dab hands with a blade and a bottle of buckfast. They also know how to write a decent tune or two, as this, their debut EP, ably demonstrates.

With reference to the usual suspects (The Ramones, The Clash, The Jam, Supergrass) they need to be doing something extraEXTRAspecial to make them stand out from the crowd, as the competition for the title of kings of the third wave of new wave is pretty tight to say the least.

Open track 'Creepin Up The Backstairs' draws as much on the punkier side of rockabilly once perfected by the Stray Cats as it does with the rest of the class of '79, which is a good start, although by the time the chorus kicks in its too easy to forget everything that's gone before it.

Better than that though is the all riffed up and ready to go blitz of 'Stacie Anne', which sounds like one of those tunes Henry Winkler would put on the jukebox in Big Al's diner, only washed down with a mixture of amphetamine sulphate and gin rather than Pepsi and a 1/3 pound grilled hot dog.

By the time 'The Gutterati?' kicks in with its shambolic chorus and de-tuned guitars, the end of the road is nigh but at least 1½ ain't that bad for starters.
3/5

Dom Gourlay