Brothers won’t break. Not these brothers, at least – Gary, Ryan and Ross Jarman, known collectively as The Cribs. After two decades and nine albums as one of Britain’s best-loved bands, the Wakefield-born siblings have weathered enough storms, onstage and off, to realise that an indestructible bond exists between them. For years, it’s fizzed beneath the surface of their sound, perforating every thrash of guitar, every snap of snare, every impassioned vocal, roared back at them at live shows by sweat-drenched, devoted crowds. But rarely have the band acknowledged this bond out loud. “It’s not something we ever really said to each other explicitly,” admits bassist and lead vocalist Gary. That all changed, however, with the creation of Selling A Vibe – their bold new album, which captures The Cribs at their bottle-rocket energetic best.

Produced by MGMT and Caroline Polachek collaborator Patrick Wimberly, Selling A Vibe is an unapologetic celebration of family. It’s about finding your way back to health with help from those loved ones, the band explain. “On our first records, we were just writing about our individual experiences. That’s a really verdant field of inspiration, but as you go along, life points you towards bigger things to write about,” says Gary. “But this time, I realised when I was writing the lyrics that all of the songs were really rooted in family.”

Maybe that should be no wonder, given the tumultuous time the brothers went through to arrive at this record. The last Cribs album, Night Network, looked to the world like a triumph for the trio, who were back from the brink with a bang. The band had been “in two minds about whether to carry on,” Ryan remembers, after a series of spirit-sapping legal tangles with their former management. But they persevered, and were rewarded with their most glowing reviews since 2007’s Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever when Night Network arrived in 2020.

From the outside, it might have seemed like The Cribs were riding high. But to the brothers themselves, the experience of releasing the record felt a little hollow. Separated from each other and unable to tour because of the Covid-19 pandemic, they found themselves in their respective homes, thousands of miles apart – guitarist Ryan in New York, Gary in Portland, Oregon, and drummer Ross in the family’s native Wakefield – reflecting on what their brotherhood had become. “In the beginning, we were brothers who had a band. And I think we realised we’d become a band that happened to be brothers,” says Ryan, explaining how the break that followed Night Network afforded them an opportunity to fix that – as well as personal issues caused by decades on the road and in the studio, in perpetual motion. “There was a lot of unhealthiness I had to leave behind,” says Ryan, who documents that struggle on Looking For The Wrong Guy, one of Selling A Vibe’s most emotionally charged songs.“I’m just wasting away watching the time go by,” the guitarist sings over chords written in a dream-like state at four in the morning.

Elsewhere are bittersweet anthems like Distractions (“one of my favourite songs on the record,” says Ross), the danceable Self Respect (a song that emerged from a “Michael Jackson-type bassline,” reveals Gary) and the hazardously catchy A Point Too Hard To Make. “When we wrote that one in the room, it felt like an indie-rock song. But now you can’t put your finger on where it comes from,” says Gary. “It sounds like it could have come from any time in the last forty years. Or from the future.”

That might be down to the album’s producer, former Chairlift member Patrick Wimberly, who helped the group adopt contemporary pop recording techniques for the first time, as an experiment into where it might take their sound. “We needed the perfect balance of somebody who worked in a modern way but understood who we were and what we’re about. And that's how we ended up with Patrick,” Gary says of the former Chairlift member, who welcomed the band into his Brooklyn studio. The Cribs are no strangers to collaboration, with Johnny Marr and Lee Ranaldo past contributors to records, and Steve Albini, Edwyn Collins, Alex Kapranos and Ric Ocasek among their former producers. In each case, they’ve let those collaborators room to work their magic. With Wimberly, however, Gary says the band “entirely gave the reins over” like never before, resulting in songs that flew off in exciting new directions they hadn’t anticipated.

Selling A Vibe crescendos with a song not recorded in Wimberly’s Brooklyn studio, however, but in a basement in Portland, Oregon. “There could never be any shame for the things that we would never change, after all this time holding the line,” the group chant in unison over emotive chords. It’s a song about being in a band with your brothers, which Gary “felt a little bit self conscious about bringing to Ross and Ryan. But to me, it’s kind of owning what we are. There’s something special about being in The Cribs with them. And instead of being self-effacing, I wanted to say it on the record. It felt really pure, writing that one.”

The song in question’s title? Brothers Won’t Break. Because of course they don’t. Not these brothers. Selling A Vibe is The Cribs’ monument to that fact. Listen to it loud.