Singles

The Dead Shores - Modern Men

Richard Wink 22/11/2009

Rating: 2/5

Picture the scene, a bloke walks past two builders dressed in a sarong, his hair swept up in a fashion mullet, he's also wearing a salmon pink polo shirt with fake diamond encrusted buttons. The two builders begin talking about the good old days when men were men. However what they don't realize is that this bloke is just as crass and macho as they are, complete with an annual subscription to Nuts Magazine and the obligatory utterance of “pwoar!!!” to every dolly bird that walks past.

'Modern Men' attempts to attack the latest evolution of lad culture. Frontman Craig Whitfield comes off like a sober Mark E. Smith with a coherent dissection of the perma tanned, man bag wearing Cristiano Ronaldo-likes who strut around Cities up and down the country. Set over a bed of generic indie rock the song relies almost solely on Whitfield's dry wit with clever lines that hit the obvious target such as “I've not got a WKD side”.

B-side 'Sick and Tired' again rants about modern life, though Whitfield runs out of ideas mid-song. I can't help but feel that a whole host of Northern bards, the likes of Cooper Clarke, Morrissey and Cocker have already covered this ground.

I'm loath to deem this single a novelty record as it reminds me in places of The Fall and Half Man Half Biscuit, but the humour quickly loses its impact over repeated listens.