The View - 5 Rebbeccas

Everyone has a crucial point in their lives which they dread. For boys it could be the tangled web of love, females and the fast approaching car crash of hormonally charged puberty. For girls, perhaps it’s whose heart to break next, who knows? But for bands it would have to be the monumentally important second album. A decider in their musical career. And in many cases, the approach of a second album will be accompanied by a music critic pointing a fully loaded gun or slander themed adjectives right at the head of the musical mind behind either the monstrosity or the masterpiece…

In this case I feel that I am going to lower my cynical weapon of words doused in negative connotations for it is the return of everyone’s favourite Dundee vagabonds, The View. Although we are only at the first single stage I feel confident in these boys. The double-dutch foursome have returned from their smoke filled odyssey with around four minutes of anthemic, riff fuelled junkie drama.

New single, 5 Rebbeccas, begins like the illegitimate love child of Wasted Little DJ’s. It scurries down the well trodden path of overdosed distortion that the carnage causing Scot’s have taken before. And as they dip into the first verse, the melodically organised ramshackle becomes chaotically poetic as the problem-posing dialect of Kyle Falconer begins to flow from his tongue.

The mixture of grubby rock and roll and beautifully melodic pop is an insight into the hard work that has gone into making this tune. After around three years of touring and making their debut album, “Hats off to the buskers”, the boys have had a wee break and are to release their second album in January 2009, with the intriguing title, “Which bitch?”

According to Falconer and guitarist Pete Reilly, the new album is “darker” and more “experimental”, a step away from their successful pop charged debut, which leaves me wondering…If “5 Rebbeccas” is a taster of things to come, well then we are in for quite a treat.

It’s a drug inspired snippet of rock angst, depicting the trials and tribulations of a young female, “Rebbecca”, apparently based on a real person. Nonetheless, “5 Rebbeccas” is not only caked in a new found musical maturity, but also a cluster of chant worthy lyrics, which like the debut, are sure to engrave themselves into the long list of View lyrics that already echo the towns past played. Dark and Experimental seems to have paid off, and believe me, The View are still very much “On Fire!”