Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 22/01/07
Label: 1965

You can just picture the scene. Friday night at a youth club in Dundee. A bunch of acne-ridden teenagers are tearing through a drunken set of cover versions, cheerily living the rock star dream for one night only. They play "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor", "F*ck Forever", "She's Electric" by Oasis, even "500 Miles" by The Proclaimers. And the sweaty, equally as drunken audience, all the same age pretty much, go berserk. This may just be a bunch of kids having a laugh, but tonight, they're rock'n'roll stars. Hats off to the buskers, indeed.

Fast forward, well, hardly any time at all, and that same band are snatching the limelight with some riotous support slots and putting out one of the buzz albums of the year. In reality, The View actually played Sex Pistols and Squeeze covers while they were still at school, but everything else holds true. Over 14 tracks in 40 minutes, "Hats Off To The Buskers" drags you through a season's worth of "Skins" episodes, cramming teenage sex, drugs and dirty jeans into an uncomplicated, unpretentious tribute to the indie heroes of today.

The album opens weirdly with "Comin' Down", a thrashy garage blues howler that sounds like a lost cut from the 22-20s album, but after that the band find their natural pace. Take the jaunty, thumbs-aloft Oasis of "Digsy's Diner" / "She's Electric", throw in the wry charm of the Arctic Monkeys, and add a ton of alcohol and a thick Dundee accent that could strip girders at twenty paces, and you have a blueprint for a night on the town. It's not big, clever, original, or even particularly inspired, but you can feel the fun dripping off the ceiling.

So, "Don't Tell Me" is Liam Gallagher fronting The Libertines, "The Don" sticks its elbows out for a tribute to the band's latchkey childhood ("He was taking his piano lessons / We was on half an E"), "Wasted Little DJs" is an Arctics-a-like anthem with suitably dry lyrics ("They told me if I write this song for them / That they would cut my hair for free"), "Gran's For Tea" turfs in some housing scheme ska and a whoooaah for the Kaiser Chiefs fans, "Street Lights" could be Dodgy back for a crack at the 21st century, and "Same Jeans" is The Proclaimers, plain and simple.

It's probably easy for anyone over 21 to dismiss The View as a bunch of chancers riding on the coat-tails of their heroes. But there's a charm, spirit and cast-iron confidence here that will speak to the Ladies And Gentlemen of The Kids, in the youth clubs and pub back rooms of the nation. And rather this, than the trust fund indie-lite of The Kooks and The Fratellis. Our hats are off.

    by Ian Watson