The Rifles – ‘No Love Lost’ (Red Ink) Released 17/07/06

The Rifles are one of those bands that are adequate but anonymous, neither deserving of our praise nor scorn really. According to Amazon, customers who have purchased Rifles CD’s have also bought stuff by Morning Runner and The Upper Room, so you get the picture. ‘No Love Lost’ washes over the listener without ever really creating excitement but it does have its nice moments ‘One Night Stand’ and the single ‘She’s Got Standards’ for example are fine indie pop gems, however more often than not The Rifles sub par Jam-esque tunes descend into pub covers band territory.

The Paul Weller similarities are obvious and as much as Joel Stroker will inevitably deny it his vocal delivery and even his look are stolen straight from the Mod Father. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there are after all much worse bands to steal from, but The Rifles say nothing new or exciting so the only thing you remember about them is their likeness to The Jam. ‘Narrow Minded Social Club’ sounds like Hard-Fi, like we said there are much worse bands to steal from.

In all honesty we are struggling to fill this review with words describing The Rifles as anything other than dull and ordinary. Tracks like ‘Local Boy’, ‘Peace And Quiet’ and ‘Repeated Offender’ would all be rejected by numerous non descript indie bands for being too much like ‘filler’ whilst the rest of the album is pure Radio 2 fodder. The Rifles are not bad it’s just they lack anything that makes you want to get up and go, no spark, no passion, and no heart. Perhaps we expect too much of debut albums nowadays but with so many tremendous new bands around tolerating average groups is not a necessity anymore.

Maybe ‘No Love Lost’ will be loved by the Q reading, Steve Wright listening, mid life crisis approaching Dads and will go on to sell tens of thousands of albums culminating in a prestigious but narcissistic support slot with Paul Weller, we doubt it however and hope that The Rifles piss off back to indie obscurity joining The Thrills and taking Boy Kill Boy with them.