The Rifles // None The Wiser
If you like your indie mod rock neatly pre-packaged and ready for mass consumption, then you’ll love humming the easy to remember chorus melodies as you strut around Glastonbury ’14 in a straw hat.
London indie mods The Rifles have churned out their 4th studio album, ‘None the Wiser’, to be released in February 2014. I’ll go straight in with my honest and not so humble opinion of this 40-minute, 10-track album and then attempt to justify myself. As far as I can tell, there are in actual fact only 2 tracks on this album. ‘You Win Some’ is a subtly psychedelic folk tune, hints of reverb throughout and lyrics that manage to be both sombre and uplifting. Lilting harmonies meander through a beautifully constructed 3 and a half minutes - a testament to The Rifles’ song writing abilities. Then there’s everything else. All of the other 10 tracks (there’s a hidden one at the end, I didn’t miscount) sound remarkably similar, to the point where they may as well be one 36-minute long indie drone. A terrible shame if you ask me, as I believe The Rifles are capable of more than this. A simple rehashing of old The Jam tunes, essentially what ‘None the Wiser’ is, shouldn’t be enough to be classed as “yet another raising of the bar”. Sure, be a mod revival band, take influences from decades past, but do something new with it. Despite these all being original songs, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d somehow heard them all before. If you like your indie mod rock neatly pre-packaged and ready for mass consumption, then you’ll love humming the easy to remember chorus melodies as you strut around Glastonbury ’14 in a straw hat. If you have a more discerning taste, best give this one a miss. 3/10 Jack Teare
London indie mods The Rifles have churned out their 4th studio album, ‘None the Wiser’, to be released in February 2014. I’ll go straight in with my honest and not so humble opinion of this 40-minute, 10-track album and then attempt to justify myself. As far as I can tell, there are in actual fact only 2 tracks on this album. ‘You Win Some’ is a subtly psychedelic folk tune, hints of reverb throughout and lyrics that manage to be both sombre and uplifting. Lilting harmonies meander through a beautifully constructed 3 and a half minutes - a testament to The Rifles’ song writing abilities. Then there’s everything else. All of the other 10 tracks (there’s a hidden one at the end, I didn’t miscount) sound remarkably similar, to the point where they may as well be one 36-minute long indie drone. A terrible shame if you ask me, as I believe The Rifles are capable of more than this. A simple rehashing of old The Jam tunes, essentially what ‘None the Wiser’ is, shouldn’t be enough to be classed as “yet another raising of the bar”. Sure, be a mod revival band, take influences from decades past, but do something new with it. Despite these all being original songs, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d somehow heard them all before. If you like your indie mod rock neatly pre-packaged and ready for mass consumption, then you’ll love humming the easy to remember chorus melodies as you strut around Glastonbury ’14 in a straw hat. If you have a more discerning taste, best give this one a miss. 3/10 Jack Teare
