The Ripps - Long Live The Ripps (Catskills)
4/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
When the foremost thing that jumps out at you is that the bass line you're hearing is probably the best thing you've sampled since the Pixies began 'Dolittle', you know you're on to a winner...
Having freshly played shows with The Young Knives and The Rifles, bands known for their live virtuosity, you can fathom that The Ripps are the kind of people who'll make mincemeat of a dancefloor with Coxon-esque snarling and the all out liquefying of guitars. What's thrilling about The Ripps though is that you don't need to see them live to fall victim to their transmittable power-pop-punk choruses and Sex Pistol venerating verses. 'Vampires' falls somewhere between an early, as in back when they were good, Ordinary Boys (hang on, were they ever good?), a Super Mario theme tune and The Horrors, entwining a variety of sub-genres into an unprocessed sound that's a sum total of all that's orgasmic about up-to-the-minute music while discharging a very classic (think The Clash and The Jam) vibe that maintains a presence all their own.
This band proves that some of the most imperative new music in the country is coming from the Midlands area, and indeed residing on indie labels, as 'Holiday' puts you into a complete and untainted, sexily dressed, Blur-influenced space where a sense of pleasure prevails with exchanging tempos and vocals. What's really bizarre is how the vocals manage to pull off the Coxon / Albarn dual attack single-handedly and while the drumming triumphs like a full blown tornado, the string beating, desolate and insistent, becomes almost insignificant to the loudness and crushing might of the songs edifice. As a band they're a total mishmash of influences with 90s Brit pop fighting with 70s punk and modern post-Lib indie to form a kind of mangled hotchpotch of brawling locomotive melodies, but as Kevin McCloud would say, 'it all just... works'.
Like the Libertines and other freewheelers, The Ripps weren't afraid to put stuff on their debut that might have seemed out of place. 'I Don't Like You Anymore' could have been flung to the b-side pile as it doesn't really 'fit in' with the album, but as a concluding rupture of hardcore pop it works as the albums seal, and the LP's hidden track is also a great love explosion of neon kitsch and stalking lyrics that many a band would have misplaced. The roaming and often off the walls style to this album would be menacing to a lot of new bands that strive to belong to a specific brand, but The Ripps have been themselves throughout and it's paid off as what their debut uncovers is a group that have got some grand ideas, only a few of which have yet to be seen.
We wouldn't like to pick singles from here as it's all so encircling, but 'Loco' and 'You Don't Even Care' stand out as highlights and affirmative reinforcement for reasons to buy this album... and both for very different reasons. 'You Don't Even Care' has summed up the unsophisticated nature of a lot of new wave independent artists and made an archetypal underpinning sound proud, with something more than a whimsical riff to bite into, and crocheted it amongst a Grease 2 submersing tongue-in-cheek charm. 'Loco' is the harder punch of Rancid-resonating mid 90s pop-punk gallantry that would belong on an American ska bands novelty-classics back catalogue list if it wasn't for a peppy and inconspicuous lick that gently rubs the brim of the songs underbelly in a come-to-bed manner.
The Ripps sound like everything else on the verge of making it across the waters of obscurity into acknowledgment, but by being an indispensable part of what's happening, clasping vital elements of all that's around them, they've become too imperative to ignore. You can see lightning flashes of a lot of other bands throughout this album but at no point would you really say it's a rip off of anything else as it treads the boards between influence and interpretation rather well stirring up a new batch of entertainment that you can instantly relate to without it sounding old hat.
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment