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The Cribs have always been a cut above their Yorkshire contemporaries, and Ignore The Ignorant demonstrates exactly why.
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This is The Cribs’ best album to date.
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With Marr's chiming chords as a safety net, the uncompromising Cribs let their songs breathe, allowing for the intriguing introspection and languid vocals.
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Here’s Johnny! Marr forces Jarman brothers out of their Crib.
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Q MagazineA complex album that reveals more with each hearing. [Oct 2009, p.110]
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UncutThe vocals are muddied, but there are diamond-bright tunes here. [Oct 2009, p.95]
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MojoThe Cribs of 2009 sound bold, fully-realised, their anthems polished and radio-ready, without sacrificing the acerbic edge that's powered them this far. [Sep 2009, p.88]
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Alternative PressThe Cribs manage to keep enough of their edge while dishing out another pile of consistently great pop songs. [Dec 2009, p.112]
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Ignore The Ignorant looks for escape into the US indie underground, "Last Year's Snow", "Cheat On Me" and "Nothing" sulkier than The Cribs we've come to know, reluctantly 'pop' dismissals rather than worried cures for a mainstream malaise The Cribs apparently regard as terminal.
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The Cribs' songs hold up even when slowed down, and they're able to paint outside old lines with the added shadings, nodding to Sonic Youth ("City of Bugs") and the Smiths again ("Save Your Secrets"), while still delivering plenty of their typical Britrock momentum.
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While Ignore the Ignorant isn't perfect--Gary and Ryan Jarman's guileless vocals don't always jell with their slick surroundings--it is unquestionably some of the Cribs' most accomplished and diverse music.
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Compared to Morrissey's oblique but resonant lyricism, the Jarmans deal in provocative sound-bite slogans, but the Cribs prove themselves worthy successors to a lineage of cheekily erudite Britpop that spans David Bowie through to the Smiths to Pulp.
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Outside of other fleet highlights ('Emasculate Me,' 'Victims Of Mass Production'), where all four members get streamlined enough to work up momentum, they often sound chunky in a way that suggests they haven’t fully integrated Marr’s lighter touch.
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Underproduced by Nick Cave producer Nick Launay, results are less the Smiths' heroic jangle than something from the muddier end of John Peel's Festive 50 circa 1987. Fans of "real indie" will be thrilled.
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On the first listen, Ignore the Ignorant sounds like a revelation—they’re all grown up now. But on repeated spins, the album becomes the most terrible of things: forgettable.
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Under The RadarTheir records have failed to capture their live verve and bile, too often bogged down by a sludgy production aesthetic. That is, until Ignore The Ignorant, the band's fourth and best album to date. [Holiday 2009, p.78]
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They’re still an incredibly likeable band, unashamed of being rabble-rousing without ever resorting to lowest common denominator tactics, but The Cribs have toned down the things that made them great.