We Need Medicine
Cooking Vinyl
For a band that so ardently opposed to the success of its classic pub rock, Chelsea Dagger, The Fratellis have done very little to musically distance themselves from that song in the seven years since its release. We Need Medicine is the first album since the band’s 2009 breakup and Lazarus reunion, and is aptly named, as the music sounds terminally ill.
Kicking off with a cheesy ‘70s sax line in Halloween Blues, the band still draws heavily on the masculine blues rock influences that popularised the band in bars the world over. The album has brief moments of classic Fratellis energy, such as the punchy and danceable Whiskey Saga, though these are few and far between.
She’s Not Gone Yet But She’s Leaving stands apart, being more sinister than the bulk of the album’s upbeat numbers, with Jon Fratelli taking from the drawling vocal style of Arctic Monkey’s Alex Turner. However, most of the tracks are similar and suffer from The Fratellis’ inability to evolve musically, whilst simultaneously losing the youthful naivety that initially popularised them.
SHAUN COWE
