YOUNG indie bands don’t often get to make four albums these days let alone augment their original line-up with a bona fide music legend who joins as an equal not a mentor.

But then The Cribs have never been just another band, refusing to be drawn into the post-Libertines howl at their inception as steadfastly as they eschew the indie hegemony today. And in Johnny Marr they have found a billboard name who adds much more than simply kudos to their increasingly impressive stance.

While it’s true the man who brought glistening, lyrical, guitar beauty to the music of The Smiths brings a thrillingly familiar shimmer to that of The Cribs, there’s never any sense of the Jarman brothers (Ryan, guitar/vox; Gary, bass/vox, Ross, drums) being anything other than at one with their new guitarist – as he is with them. No room for myths and legends here.

Wednesday night’s set was as raw as flu-suffering Gary’s voice. It bristled with visceral energy, from punky early highlights like Hey Scenesters! to more sophisticated new album tracks like Save Your Secrets, Ignore the Ignorant and the gorgeous Last Year’s Snow.

But the true measure of where The Cribs have made their stand lies in the prickly power pop of the last album’s Men’s Needs and recent singles like Cheat On Me and We Share the Same Skies, which is possessed of a Marr guitar signature so lush I swear I saw grown men buckle at the knees. Lyrically literate and melodically infectious, long may The Cribs continue to rail against the lazy, the woebegone and the cynical.