Album Review

The Raid – We Know Best

• 21st Feb 2008

It could be said that adopting a formula for these things is counter-intuitive. It could be said that reviews that follow a CD, track by track, which run through influences, sound, quality and then finally arrive at a judgement are perceptive music criticism broken down into a conveyer belt routine. But I am not saying that.

Take this single, for instance. There are two tracks, ‘We Know Best’ and ‘Show Me’. ‘We Know Best’ starts like The Clash at their prime trying to cover Blink 182’s ‘What’s My Age Again’ – and if you can picture the bemused faces as Strummer et al take an average American punk song and infuse it with their greatness, that’s the dynamic that flows underneath the track like one of London’s hidden rivers. However as the first chords hit, it is The Stereophonics after their prime that lurch in – the plangent, full-bodied but sadly affected chords playing a duel with the subterranean intelligent bass and a beautifully judged choppy and spangly guitar riff.

The second song, ‘Show Me’, from the first vocal hum that morphs into a raspy ‘c’mon’ and then tries to grate cheese with its rough edges is the resolution — where the band naturally want to head. The Clash put down their nimble Blink 182 cover and The Raid take the reigns full on, with some four to the floor old time rock and roll. It feels much less forced. It certainly isn’t bad; the propulsive energy and Kelly Jones timbre all over the mic make the Club NME endorsement ring true: ‘One continuous glorious guitar swamp.’ But the swamp, that primal place where the NME belongs, with its stupidity, its asinine ‘journalism’ and faddish bandlust, is not a place that The Raid want to be kept. They’ve the talent to get onto two legs and peg it away from the terrible NME and towards a future where adding just a little more variation to their songs will turn ‘quite good’ into ‘quite good indeed’.