SEAL ON PSYCHEDELICS

The View // Cheeky For A Reason // July 6 // Cooking Vinyl

Following local music scenes in Britain can be either a hassle or a lackluster experience. Most of the relevant stuff is coming out of London anyway. There’s some stuff to drop from Manchester or Glasgow but otherwise we might as well be looking at villages here. The View are your typical indie rock revival veterans, doing the only thing they can years after everyone stopped caring. What’s worse, they’re from Dundee. Now I lived there for half a year, the place has its charms but its music scene isn’t one. Their 4th LP captures the spirit of a town that’s far away from musical relevancy.

First of all, that title. It’s the sort of thing that may have worked on their earlier stuff but for an album that is being described by the band as “Fleetwood Mac Rumours done by The Clash”, such lack of maturity stands out as Cheeky For A Reason is arguably The View’s most mature album, like, ever. Most of it comes from them finding a new batch of bands to rip off. They don’t really sound like Fleetwood Mac on here and there’s definitely nothing even remotely resembling The Clash. Cheeky For A Reason is merely 12 songs that display a more mature approach to lad-rock. They may be more interested about falling in love than getting pissed but for any human being that isn’t a member of The View, that’s an old and dusted topic. The songwriting is stepped up here as on here the band are more into storytelling than a simple singalong chorus. Not that the stories are any good mind, typical working class pub fodder. Cheeky For A Reason may have some new tricks but they’re not that fresh or amusing.

If anything, the reason why anyone cared about The View in the first place is because how little fuck did they give about the music industry and the quick success that suddenly found them back in 2007. Their new album is the sound of a band starting to get self-conscious about how they are sounding 5 years into their musical adventure. The opener How Long may be one of the better tracks on here but it’s uncharacteristically clean for a brash act like the Scottish 4-piece. More than Fleetwood Mac, The View are showing off their new found love for big sized classic rock. None of the punk energy from the early records is left as like most records by bands that suddenly drop their punk influences for classic rock sound, Cheeky For A Reason feels a little bit stale. It’s a record that you’ve heard many times before done to better results. The lads don’t even bother writing huge hooks anymore which feels like a mistake considering that the bigger sound found here matches the festival arenas that they will be aiming for. The best tracks on here are the ballads, how does that even work? There’s nothing cheeky about not even trying to write a good hook boys.

For a band that once had a quick success but are now releasing their third record in a row that no one really cares about, The View are at least doing whatever they want to. There’s very little creativity involved in here but I suppose at least it’s not your typical angular indie by numbers. Cheeky For A Reason is an album that’s at least interesting enough to keep that band going but nowhere on it you’ll feel a rush of excitement that the lads are about to do a U-turn and shoot back to fame or relevancy.