Album: The View

Hats Off to the Buskers, 1965

Is there any originality left in British indie-pop? Any bands with Big Ideas of their own? I ask because the hotly tipped Dundee combo The View, on the strength of this debut album, are just another group traipsing along meekly in the wake of The Libertines, their only apparent innovation being the cartoonishly over-rolled Scots Rs applied by singer Kyle Falconer to the title hook of "Superstar Tradesman". Songs like "Don't Tell Me" and "The Don" have the same jaunty, amateurish charm once employed by The Libertines, while on "Gran's For Tea" Falconer even manages to adopt the lackadaisical delivery of Pete Doherty. Sadly, the band also borrow the former indie favourites' unadventurous musical manner, their ramshackle, lurching gait laced with elements of music-hall oompah kitsch and, in "Wasteland", a soupçon of Ordinary Boys-style ska-punk. The best track is the opener "Comin' Down"; it's no more innovative or original than the rest, but, sounding like a Fall-style punkabilly boogie fronted by Alex Harvey, rather more fun.

DOWNLOAD THIS: "Comin' Down", "Don't Tell Me"