Someone needs to rush The Cribs to a Harley Street neurologist as soon as humanly possible. Lord above knows what they’re suffering from – ‘Kasabian Syndrome’ , at a guess – but the symptoms are horribly clear. Like a stick-thin anorexic who sees a pile of blubber when they look in the mirror, The Cribs are labouring under the misapprehension that they’re forward-thinking visionaries, tap-dancing on the cutting edge while the rest of indiedom struggles to string three chords together. Why else would they criticise the “mainstream attitude of most indie bands” if they weren’t – what was that phrase again? Oh yes – avatars of aheadness?

The dismal truth, of course, is that The Cribs are the epicentre of mediocrity for 2007 – not shameless enough to peddle nerdy trust fund indie like The Hoosiers , not dumb enough to bash out the youth club covers like The View , just earnest and unimaginative and pathologically unable to engage with anything resembling a tune. Fifteen years ago, dreary punk pop of this stripe failed to revolutionize the world when it was lumped together as the New Wave Of New Wave (despite some far superior stabs from the likes of S*M*A*S*H and These Animal Men ), so it’s hardly going to do the trick now. Probably the least relevant single released this year. (DM)

MP3 | The Cribs – Don’t You Wanna Be Relevant?