Unless you’re a method actor and have been camped on a desert island in preparation for your local theatre’s upcoming production of Lost, you should know all about The View. Four teenage scamps from Dundee signed last year on the basis of a couple of excellent singles and the rapidly expanding crowds at their shows, the subsequent press attention has pegged them as this year’s Band Most Likely To. 

Comparisons with the Artic Monkeys are tempting on the basis of similar hype, but it’s misleading. Both bands and their songs muse on the seedier side of city life – booze, neds and drugs – but The View are far sunnier in their outlook, with a poppier sound in thrall to the Libertines, polished to the hilt by Oasis producer Owen Morris. Kyle Falconer’s lyrics also don’t come close to any of Alex Turner’s urban stories, but that’s okay – where the Monkeys are mostly about lyrics, The View are more about the tunes. 

The record opens with the unremarkable ‘Comin’ Down’, all spiky guitars and screaming vocals. It’s not a great start and sounds like a cross between Oasis and Jet, in all honesty nothing that you’ve not heard before. Singles ‘Superstar Tradesman’ and ‘Same Jeans’ quickly pick things up though. Powered by chiming riffs and sunny choruses, they do exactly what they say on the tin – cheerful, throwaway indie pop which sounds great on the radio. A lot of the record is similar to this – songs like ‘Don’t Tell Me’ and ‘The Don’ are shiny Libertines pop roasted in a Dundee style – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing when it’s done as well as this. 

If there’s a clunker here it’s ‘Skag Trendy’, which has Falconer sounding like Spud from Trainspotting, but with a Dundonian accent (not a good singing voice). This is thankfully cancelled out quickly with the cheekily titled ‘Face for Radio’, probably the best song on the album. Simply Falconer and an acoustic guitar, it sounds like it was recorded in the midst of the Mother of All Hangovers and is gently bursting with regret, even though the lyrics don’t suggest so.

Generally, Hats Off to the Buskers is a polished and decent debut for a band with an average age of 18. When it’s great it flies – in particular ‘Wasted Little DJ’s’ and ‘Face for Radio’ – but, like the Artic Monkeys before them, for the most part it’s just good rather than great.  Regardless, they’ll no doubt sell loads and will be back for a second helping. 

(3/5)