10 Bands From The 2000s You've Definitely Forgotten

Describe The Rakes in 3 words; Loose, Loud and Overlooked. Fiery guitar driven indie, a cockney love child of Alex Turner and Mike Skinner who managed to have an effortless swagger despite the middle-class roots and the classic indie band set up.

Especially so on their debut album Capture/Release which was full of these giant chomping guitar melodies and frozen rope bass lines; those ones that drives right in between your ribs.

They’re bleak and wonderful, the pitch perfect encapsulation of everything that was wrong with London at the time played with this detached desperation that was joyous to the ears. From the nonchalant finger clicks to the count off in German and the proclamation that 22 grand in the city is ‘alright’ The Rakes were a band you wanted to listen to with your mates and a beer.

Overshadowed by the Doherty’s, Turner’s and Skinner’s of the decade, The Rakes still manage to get better and more prescient with every listen. How anyone can’t get pumped up by ‘Strasbourg’ or melancholic at ‘We Danced Together’ is beyond me. The Rakes are oft forgotten national treasure.