The Fratellis: Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied review – indie hitmakers still full of hooks

If the Fratellis never recorded again, they’d be remembered for 2006’s stomping Chelsea Dagger, which took a football chant-type hookline into the Top 5 and remains a playlist staple at sports stadia around the world. Now on their fourth album, rollicking country rocker Imposters (Little By Little) shows that they haven’t lost their knack for super-catchy melodies that could be bellowed by a crowd – although this time it’s the guitar riff, not the vocal that sticks in the head. Elsewhere, swaggering glam-indie, music-hall rowdiness and lyrics that rhyme “rust” with “must” are occasionally augmented by more wistful reflections. There are even shades of Bruce Springsteen in Jon Fratelli’s musings about disappearing into the horizon as the sun goes down. The album stutters when influences are writ too large – Stevie Wonder on Dogtown and Razorlight on Desperate Boy – and it all runs out of steam towards the end. Still, as the anthemic, U2-like piano ballad Slow demonstrates quite ably, they’re in no mood to be written off.