Dundee four piece The View emerges with its first full-length album, Hats Off To The Buskers. Despite being just two years into their recording career, the band is already gaining notoriety; if not yet for their music, then for their outrageous on-tour shenanigans. Their debut album is a cannily considered mix of punk, skiffle and music hall-bred power pop which fizzes with energy and affects a brash charm. The most overplayed thing with the band is the fact that everyone constantly compares them to the Libertines. But that is no reason not to like the album, as there are plenty of bands who sound like each other. Hats Off To The Buskers is definetly interesting and worth listening. Lead singer Kyle Falcolner makes no effort to hide his Scottish accent, which adds more depth into the lyrics and overall performance. He is able to raise and lower the pitch of his voice to suit the song and still sing brilliantly. The lyrics are matched, in the main part, by some superbly hummable tunes and choruses that stick in your head for weeks, if not months. Hats Off To The Buskers finds a young working class band telling tall tales of Noughties life in a provincial British city. The View’s first creation is another brilliant british indie record to start of the new year.
The album is kept sharp and sweet by its curt 44-minute length. The opening track Comin' Down soars in on an adrenaline fuelled rush, before a gloriously anthem guitar riff kicks off Superstar Tradesman. The Don is an absolutely amazing piece of music because of its special guitar riffs. The band's lyrics deal with life in Dundee, in a similar vein to Arctic Monkeys' tales of Sheffield. For example, the sad tale of a teenager who lost his girlfriend Skag Trendy is the real standout track where Falconer reaches every octave on the musical scale in this hip-hop/ska/punk hybrid. The best lyrics probably belong to the song, Face For The Radio, this is an emotional song with extreme feeling which has a resounding uplifting quality to it. The lyrics overall are about the adventures of the boys and their live so far. Wasted Little Dj's has a chorus that seems incomprehensible, but it is the most original chorus in years as Kyle sing the first line of it in double dutch. Don't Tell Me is an extraodinary song with a reflective laid-back melody that masks some vitriolic lyrics.
Hats Off To The Buskers is absolutely immense. The guys from The View are yong and hot, so the sound is youthful, full of spirit and excitement. The View has an incredible knack for making genuinely enjoyable, lively and fresh songs that make you want to get up and jump around. This promising debut is a step up in quality from last year’s similar indie offerings, capturing the wild energy of Wolfmother and the Brit-pop influence of the Arctic Monkeys, and creating a far better album than the ones by either of those two. At fourteen tracks, Hats Off To The Buskers is possibly a bit overlong, and there are a couple of tracks during the second half of the album which could probably have been left off to give the record a more tighter focus. Yet there's enough talent here to suggest that the hype around The View at the moment is thoroughly justified - hats off them indeed. What makes Hats Off To The Buskers a success is its ska-geared variety, allowing each track to sound remarkably and refreshingly distinct.
