1990s Cookies Review

1990s could be the toughest, meanest, most insane band in the UK. The indie trio hail from Glasgow, which does, after all, have a reputation for being a city of hard men.

This would certainly explain why their contemporaries and critics have been queuing up to heap praise on a band that does little to justify such excitement on the evidence of this debut album alone.

Formed from the ashes of The Yummy Fur, 1990s set themselves up for a kicking straight away with that awful name. Is it nostalgia for a time that is arguably most well-remembered for when irony, self-consciousness and post-modernism were feted as highly as originality, intelligence or wit?

Former Suede man and occasional Libertines producer Bernard Butler is behind the desk and there’s a pleasing tautness to the record’s sound, even if it is so clearly derivative of Davis Bowie, The Velvet Underground Iggy Pop and Jonathan Richman.

Unfortunately this is one of the most lyrically atrocious albums in recent memory. How about: 'You were my boogaloo/you were my favourite shoe' on "See You At The Lights"? Or 'My cult status/keeps me alive' on "Cult Status"? Eventually the suffix changes to '…keeps me f*****g your wife'. Lads, if your chatting-up skills are as poor as your lyrics, you wouldn’t get a peck on the cheek.

Sex covered, drugs must be along soon. And of course, "Enjoying Myself" isn’t likely to be about the joys of crochet. But, oh no! There goes the nonsensical drivel alert: 'I like to play chess/ with a man in a vest/ unless he was wearing a Stetson' leading into 'I’m into the forest now/ as my pills should be taking effect soon'. Wait, Noel Gallagher’s been on the phone saying even he wouldn’t have used couplets that dire at his most baked.

It’s only on the penultimate song does the whole sorry mess become clear. "Thinking Of Not Going" sounds like a song about missing a lecture (non-students may vomit at this point). It even goes: 'I got a lecture at 3.15 / this town is really mean, if I don’t go/ they’ll kick me out'.

Phew. Clearly Cookies was a deliberately awful parody of rock 'n' roll and the joke’s on anyone who takes it seriously, like The Darkness, The Killers, Jet or some other bunch of timewasters. Haha. Good work guys. You almost had us going there.