Nothing but Thieves Show Gratitude for their Roots on Unpolished Fifth Album Stray Dogs
Written by Laurette McNabb
On Saturday night, September 19th, I crammed into the sweaty Underworld in Camden with 500 other sweaty fans to see Nothing but Thieves perform their third gig in one day. The genre-bending alt-rockers have been steadily growing in popularity and establishing their place in the UK music industry since their 2015 debut album. Though their headline tour in 2027 will see them playing the O2 Arena in London and two nights at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam, they chose intimate grassroots venues like Underworld and Chinnerys Southend for this run of shows to promote their fifth album, Stray Dogs.
Following their glam-rock-inspired concept album, Dead Club City (2023), which earned them their first UK No. 1, Nothing but Thieves decide to turn their focus inward for Stray Dogs, reflecting on their career within the lyrics and adopting a production style that is rougher around the edges. Guitarist and producer Dom Craik attempts to recreate the sound of the band performing live while recording in the same studio as their first album, Angelic Studios. The tracklist is structured like a gig setlist with songs flowing into each other and interspersed samples of crowd noise.
Opener and title-track ‘Stray Dogs’ kicks off the album with an explosive chorus and a frantic riff reminiscent of early Muse. Moshing to this track at Underworld made me appreciate it more than when I first heard it as a single, but still, put up against the other heavy songs in the band’s catalogue, this one isn’t doing anything groundbreaking. The lyrics explore the primal connection between the band and their audience, and the whirlwind experience of touring and playing music. The Springsteen-esque third track ‘Evolution’ builds upon these themes through a more sentimental lens, alluding to their early gigs in ‘halcyon days.’ The song reads as a love letter to the community of fans and crew formed around the band, who have been a part of their evolution.
The tracklist pacing lags somewhat through tracks 4-6, especially with the two sonically safe soft-rock songs ‘#5’ and ‘If You Don’t Have Someone to Love’ being back-to-back. They sound nice enough, and ‘#5’ has since grown on me, but I found them too generic and almost indistinguishable from each other on the first few listens. Nothing but Thieves seem to be pulling their punches in terms of emotional weight and catharsis, the elements that make their slower songs like ‘Before We Drift Away’ so unique and skin-tingling.
Side 2, which is considerably stronger than Side 1 in my opinion, opens with the 90’s-power-pop-inspired ‘Baby Kool (Evelyn).’ Boasting the catchiest hook on the album, this one’s a certified earworm that you can picture playing over a montage in a summer coming-of-age film. Somber strings and a drowsy effect on Conor Mason’s vocals set the mood for ‘I Needed You Then, I Need You Now,’ whose lyrics describe a depressive episode. The vocal distortion has made the song unpopular among fans, but I think it fits well with the instrumentation and atmosphere. Sandwiched between two of the heavier rock songs on the album, the track sadly isn’t given enough room to breathe or linger with the listener.
If we’re thinking about the tracklist as a setlist, the final two tracks would comprise the head-spinning encore to leave the gig on a high note. ‘American Confidence’ offers that quintessential NBT balance of sharp lyricism, a strong melody, and hard rock instrumentation. With its political commentary and unconventional outro, it wouldn’t sound out of place on their Moral Panic record. The lyrics, ‘Ordained snake oil suit, televangelist / What with demons in a tube? / Of course, he flies private,’ references televangelist Kenneth Copeland, a prime example of American Christian capitalism. The album closes with ‘A Different Kind of Happiness,’ finally bringing that emotional intensity that was lacking in earlier songs. Serving as a companion piece to Broken Machine’s ‘Particles,’ the song’s lyrics reflect on a long-term struggle with mental health, still grasping onto a sliver of hope that the future may offer. The bridge features Mason’s best vocal performance on the album.
After several listens, I’ve settled on the verdict that this album is a mixed bag. Three or four tracks could rank quite high on my personal ‘Best of NBT’ list; four or five are okay if not middle-of-the-road by the band’s standards; and the remaining… I could do without. Admittedly, Nothing but Thieves have a talent for writing songs that can grow on you out of nowhere, even if you hated them on first listen. Their diverse range of sound and forward-thinking songwriting have attracted the loyal fanbase to which Stray Dogs is dedicated, but a side-effect of these qualities is that not every fan is going to thoroughly enjoy every album. I’ll still be tuned in for wherever they go next.
But for now: 6.5/10.
