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The View - 'Shock Horror'

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Fraser McAlpine | 11:14 UK time, Tuesday, 27 January 2009

The ViewGiven the extent to which the View dedicate themselves to making their music - in much the same way that a dog dedicates itself to fetching a thrown stick - it would be entirely wrong to give this record a fair-to-middling mark. Any reviewer hoping to capture something about the experience of listening to the band would have to go to the extremes, where they tend to work best, and make his or her judgement based on whether their unhinged racket is something they want to hear more of, or less.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that the View should be treated as a love/hate proposition, if only because they really don't care what you think either way.

(No video, sadly. Blame the band and their sweary ways.)

So, in one sense 'Shock Horror' is just the verses of 'Teenage Kicks' welded to the chorus of 'All Around The World' by Oasis, but played as if it's 'Don't Look Back Into The Sun' by the Libertines. A perfect case of indie-inbreeding, yes?

Well, technically, but it's also an enormously messy one-finger salute (musically messy that is,) to, y'know, the haterz, and anyone who tries to define the band according to anything but their own standard of success.

"You know they say that I'm a lightweight, well the worry weighs a ton.
If I make it to the top, don't come and save me,
Cause I'll be at the bottom having fun."

See? You can take the band out of Dundee, but you can't make them enjoy vol-au-vents. And it's this buccaneering spirit which rescues the View from being just another bunch of post-Doherty guttersnipes with a wayward attitude - Fagin's gang with guitars, basically.

They're here to remind people that if you're going to write a bunch of songs which owe their collective DNA to a gene pool which would struggle to get your socks wet, you have to - HAVE TO - play them as if your life depends on it, and scream a lot.

This, it's fair to say, is something that the Kooks do not do.

Five starsDownload: Out now
CD Released: February 2nd

(Fraser McAlpine)

PS: '5 Rebbecca's' is still rubbish though...

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