 | | The Rifles (pic: Karen McBride) |
Their third appearance in Manchester in just over two months, the band have built up a following supporting the hotly tipped Milburn and The Dead 60s, and tonight’s audience reflects the diversity from a young buff Phillip Olivier look-alike to older fans, who realize that Weller lost it the moment he started Style Council. Despite only releasing a couple of singles, everyone knows every word and drop the Mancunian twang in favour of the Cockney phrasing. Although the band can be traced back to the lineage of The Libertines and The Jam and are Londoners through and through the lyrical subjects have a mass appeal which spreads further than the river Thames.
 | | The Rifles (pic: Karen McBride) |
One Night Stand sounds like the Jam, Home Town Blues features some nifty Johnny Marr guitar riffs, She's The Only One slows things down for a mid-tempo Passengers-style ballad, Robin Hood is hotter than The Libertines and Peace & Quiet is crying out to be re-released as a single to smash all singles. When you have quality singles like Repeated Offender and She's Got Standards, and the rest of the set equals if not betters, then the ascent is a certainty. What the Rifles excel in is writing every song as a single and every album as a greatest hits collection and while it's early days for these guys, they could just be one of the major players this time next year. | 
