Album Review: The View - Which Bitch?

Album: Which Bitch?
Artist: The View
Singles: 5 Rebbeccas, Shock Horror

The View's first album, Hats Off To The Buskers, was truly brilliant. The Scottish group have come back with a second album that is equally as brilliant, while exploring some more diverse and experimental sounds, from a classical-sounding Distant Doubloon to screaming at the end of Shock Horror, to the folk sound in Realisation.

TYPICAL TIME 2

An odd way to start the album, especially since the original Typical Time was half a minute long and placed at the end as a hidden track for their debut. This version is a whole minute longer, and has different lyrics. Wow.

5 REBBECCAS

The complete opposite to their opening song, the lead single is furious and a truly great View song. Best on the album.

ONE OFF PRETENDER

I'm not joking, this one sounds like Kyle is rapping. (Don't worry, it's good!) with a rousing chorus, "You can shout it from a rooftop!" The song then segues into...

UNEXPECTED

Just like the title says, this song is quite unexpected. It's led by violins and has no, if not very little drumming, and just basic backing guitar. Not very View-like, but still a good song.

TEMPTATION DICE

Contrary to the previous song, this is much more View-like. For example, it has a good guitar part leading the song in, making it sound like true indie. Until the chanting towards the middle. Unexpected again. Nevertheless, this should be a single.

GLASS SMASH

Starting off with some more chanting, yet another new sound from The View, but half a minute later we're back to the quick-paced guitar and drums. This song is also excellent.

DISTANT DOUBLOON

After almost a minute of classical sounds with violin and piano, this turns into quite a bouncy song. In summary: Very new. Very odd. Very good.

JIMMY'S CRAZY CONSPIRACY

And back to true View style. A song whose beat makes you want to clap along. It even has a trumpet backing it, and the guitar part is as good as ever.

COVERS (feat. Paolo Nutini)

An unexpected duet. But it works well. Again - the drummer's taken a holiday, and a trumpeter has been brought in. But as is the case for practically every song on this album, the new sounds work well every time.

DOUBLE YELLOW LINES

A great song, particularly towards the end, where the key change subtly moves in, and Kyle's high-pitched vocals here make the song sound epic. "Double yellow lines by the side of the road, take me home tonight!"

SHOCK HORROR

Featuring some untuneful screaming (which makes the song work better, for some obscure reason), this is finally a 100% "old View" song. Fast, furious and fantastic. The same cannot be said, unfortunately, for:

REALISATION

Seriously, a folk song? This is out of place on this album, and it's not that good a song. It doesn't work.

GIVE BACK THE SUN

A six-minute epic whose first 30 seconds make it sound like a true old-school guitar solo, and it gets better. Featuring female backing vocals, this song gets quite catchy as it goes on.

GEM OF A BIRD

This ends the album off in style. A great finale. It's slow but catchy, and has more female vocals, harmonising together for the chorus, it sounds great. However, the album carries on with a bit of talking and then some pointless sounds followed by random guitar at about 5:20. Seriously - they should have stopped at the end of Gem Of A Bird.

For the record, their previous albums: Hats Off To The Buskers (7/10)