NME Same Jeans Review

Dundonian urch-rockers make great strides

Are The View short-sighted? Having eulogised the local party-starters on 'Wasted Little DJs' and slated the neighbourhood barflys in 'Superstar Tradesman', Dundee's finest take the navel-gazing to its logical extreme with 'Same Jeans'. "I've had the same jeans on/For four days now" muses Kyle over a trademark jangle. "I'm gonna go to a disco in the middle of the town/Everybody's dressing up/I'm dressing down".

Sigh. Has the what-to-wear dichotomy ever been solved so succinctly? As we speak, Hedi Slimane is planning a new 'Lived In' range and Trinny & Susannah are heading north, eager to see how these not-so-sweet smelling scamps can take the Daz out of dazzling. We jest, of course: wearing jeans for four days isn't really that bad. Yet listen a little closer and 'Same Jeans' can be seen as a characteristically no-nonsense bid to remain unchanged by their new-found fame. "My mind's not perfect/But I'm sincere/You'd be amazed at what you can achieve in a year" gasps Kyle, hinting at their whistle-stop journey from unfancied scallywags to NME cover-stars-to-be in 12 short months: "Get your feet back on the ground".

With Day-Glo armies triggered by bright Brazilians CSS and neon Londoners Klaxons set to send the indie nation into new rave mania in the first few months of 2007, dark days may well be ahead for them. But right now, well, it's time to celebrate the great unwashed. The View: they're wearing the trousers.

NME 5/1/07