The Cribs – For All My Sisters

They've never shirked from the big, difficult issues in their lyrics but it felt like a real darkness had enveloped the post-Marr Cribs for their dense last album In the Belly of the Brazen Bull.

Mercifully the Wakefield siblings have recovered a lightness of touch for latest offering For All My Sisters, and they wear it well. The tone is set early doors with the harmony-propelled salvo of Finally Free, Different Angle and Burning For No One, each track fitting snugly alongside the Jarmans' previous poppy high points.

The band still sound like they listen to an awful lot of US college radio which means few stylistic variations across these 12 tracks and, in truth, beyond the jagged City Storms, the quality dips a little after the high bar set by a powerful opening. Simple Story at least offers something more delicate and lovelorn, but the wait for a 100% classic Cribs album frustratingly continues. [Stu Lewis]