When former Blur guitarist Graham Coxon famously remarked Kasabian – named after a member of Charles Manson’s extended “family” – looked like they’d just walked off the set of Straw Dogs, he may have been onto something.
However, this scruffy Leicester quartet have more than breaking and entering on their minds. Having grown up on a diet of Friday night acid house slavery and Oasis cocksure, their speciality is swaggering, proggy electronic rock, as heard on their all conquering self titled debut which has blown many a festivalgoer away since its release in 2004.
And always the humblest chaps, they have gone on record as saying their latest album Empire not only surpasses its predecessor in every possible manner but stands firmly alongside Oasis’ seminal Definitely Maybe as one of the great British albums of recent times. Err, we’ll be the judge of that, fellas.
They say:
The Observer: “Unlike the calculated, humourless thump of Razorlight, this is stirring, ecstatic and – just sometimes – brilliantly OTT stuff.”
Play Louder: “What we’re offered here is pretty much a second take on the discordant beeps, Mani-ripped basslines and lazy hip hop breaks of their first album.”
We say:
Despite Kasabian’s confident claims, the Oasis album Empire is actually comparable to is the much maligned Be Here Now: a potentially great album buried beneath a clutter of noise, undisciplined writing, and slapdash “will this do?” production.
And to think it started so well with the one two sonic punch of title track ‘Empire’, a strong contender for single of the year, and ‘Shoot the Runner’, a T Rex drenched exercise in glam techno excess which, like all the best indulgences, has an all pervading sense of joy and freedom.
If only the same could be said for the rest of the album. ‘Sun/Rise/Light/Flies’, which sounds remarkably like Kula Shaker covering the Chemical Brothers’ ‘Let Forever Be’, is a mishmash of eastern strings and druggy, ethereal harmonies that collide and explode into a bloody mess, while the techno assault ‘Stuntman’ is pure XTRMNTR era Primal Scream but without a hint of purpose.
Elsewhere, the acid house cum rock of ‘Apnoea’ may well be the low point of the band’s career. Well, that is until guitarist Serge Pizzorno steps up to the mic for the curiously naff acoustic drivel of ‘British Legion’, in which he comes across like a strung out Pete Doherty doing an impersonation of Bob Dylan. Not quite the classic they spoke of, then.
Like this? Try these:
Chemical Brothers – Surrender
Primal Scream – XTRMNTR
Oasis – Be Here Now
RELEASED
28th Aug '06
LABEL
Columbia
POSTED...
Fri 25 Aug 2006 at 11:32am
