Viva Brother - 'Famous First Words' (Geffen) Released: 01/08/11

Whatever happened to just letting the music do the talking? Viva Brother (formerly Brother before a legal issue) have only just come on to the scene and already they’re mouthing off in the press, running up their egos and riling-up Gallaghers (not the hardest of tasks admittedly).

After these type of antics, you can’t help but suspect that all the mouth is simply compensation for what they lack elsewhere. Surprisingly then debut 'Famous First Words' is quite reasonably crafted outing. Take your pick of 90s Brit pop and you’re pretty likely to hear a hint of it on this album; whether it’s The Charlatans on ‘Still Here’, Ocean Colour Scene on ‘Time Machine’ or the general Oasis bolsch on the vocals running throughout the album, there’s always something reminiscent. 

And that’s a problem – nay, a fatal flaw. Because the result is that all the juicy tunes on 'Famous First Words' boil down to little else but mild hero worship, with a lot of material akin to a cover band who’ve changed the words (listen to ‘False Alarm’ and tell me I’m wrong).

All the bands whose styles have been borrowed on this release were all subject to their own time and place. Four blokes from Slough dressing like its 1993 and talking up guitar bands therefore can not reawaken the spirit of Cool Britannia. This is most reflected in the lyrics. I admit to still neither knowing or caring what a wonder wall is, but it meant something to a lot of people, much the same as most other bands of the era.

It’s hard to see the same being the case for Viva Brother; the level of ‘on the dole’ cliche suggests their lyric books to be might slim. Take even the standout single, ‘Darling Buds of May’: it swaggers along perfectly until the chorus, where the band just seems to run out of ideas, where the repeated line of “Her birthday’s in May” gives the game away that this might not be the anthem you hoped it would be. False pomp can’t make up for vapid meaning. It was the same case for The Enemy and Hard Fi, and look how well they’re doing now.

It’s sad to hear a band with talent not able to forge their own direction, but yet another reason why no new copies of 'Definitely Maybe' should be made available to the youth of today. We’re all prone to fall back on the songs of our youth, but to try and bring them back to life like a half degraded corpse is hardly the way to appreciate them. Hopefully after 6 months of pub gigs, Viva Brother will realise this. If so, the future could be bright.