Album: 1990s - Cookies
The British media says this band might be the new Arctic Monkeys; 1990s – no the and no apostrophe. These three gentlemen from Glasgow bring us Cookies, their debut album. You can describe their music as a mixture of the Rolling Stones and Franz Ferdinand; rock and roll in a very hip sauce. Singer/guitarist Jackie McKeown and bassist Jamie McMorrow played in The Yummy Fur together with Franz Ferdinand front man Alex Kapranos. It’s not surprising that Cookies has a similar sound.
Though there are similarities, this band is everything but a Franz Ferdinand clone. 1990s music is more back-to-basic, less over produced. Opening track You Made Me Like It is definitely a song that will stick in your head all day. It’s very catchy, like most of the songs on Cookies. Most catchy is the single You’re Supposed To Be My Friend. The negative lyrics sound pretty positive with that chirpy tune, but the friend they sing about will definitely know he’s making a mistake.
Cookies was produced by Bernard Butler, former guitarist of Suede and The Tears. He used vintage equipment to perfectly match the sound to the album’s no-nonsense theme. The vocals in, for example, Pollokshields do remind me a little of the way Brett Anderson (singer of both bands mentioned) sounds.
Verdict: Cookies is a very decent debut album. A couple of tracks will surely do good on the radio. If they will be as big as the Arctic Monkeys is something time will tell.