Kasabian 'West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum'

(Sony)


Kasabian come from a lineage of Northern England bands who’ve emerged from - and feed back into - a regressive discourse of masculinity within the region that has overseen the birth, rise and reproduction of lad rock. Amongst the criticisms most regularly levelled at the form is its lack of ambition and daring – both in terms of its guitar-centric sound, as well as the blue-collar championing. Where forerunners Oasis once dreamt of more in ‘Rock’n’Roll Star’ and ‘Slide Away,’ anything so transparently ambitious is largely wiped from palette of lad rock a decade on, repositioning rock stars as part of the brutish pack that love them.

Reflecting the arrogance inherent in lad rock is its steadfast refusal to progress with the times. Even as genres blur, production techniques advance and electronic sounds are absorbed, lad rock maintains a narrow, retro-focussed preoccupation, sticking to a well-tested formula while even the most ego-driven hip hop has come to lower its aesthetic barriers. Lad rock isn’t necessarily evil. But for those who fail to scale the heights of the genre’s masterpiece Definitely Maybe, too often the result it a contribution of exactly nothing to the pop canon – and, perhaps worse, perpetuate the notion that ambition is only for indie wankers.

That in mind, the UK's Kasabian are one band who do try something a bit different, attempting (sometimes awkwardly) to bring this narrow brand of rock into the 21st century. Madchester showed that the workingclass wanted to dance/pogo as much as their arty London counterparts, but where The Stone Roses et al built their grooves from organic funk-breaks and Mani’s often-hypnotic basslines, Kasabian attempted to move into the dance arena by exploiting in vogue electro aesthetics. Their debut remains their strongest offering, but its success was still mildly inconsistent. Their combination of vocals-as-football-chants, unsubtle guitar work with synthesized textures and beats seemed like a logical progression, but their alchemy wasn’t quite well-measured enough to ignite a mass migration to fluorescent clubs.

The most frustrating thing about West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum is the lack of thought seemingly behind it. Take lead single ‘Vlad The Impaler’ – it starts out fun and buoyant enough, replete with cut up vocals and a slippery bassline, but transgresses into a refrain that simply repeats “get loose”. A laziness and almost contempt for anything slightly intelligent colours most of proceedings. Despite publicly distancing themselves from ‘lad rock’ in a recent interview with NME (doth they protest too much?), this is Kasabian's most formulaic album yet. Too often the songs fall back on beats, a fuzzy low end and uninspired backing vocals to carry them. This album is like a hologram that dissolves as you gaze closer. Its cover, title, song names and publicity give a veneer of ambition that doesn’t hold up. The problem isn’t so much that it’s formulaic but that, on the surface, it so ardently insists otherwise.

It’s nearly embarrassing how the band unashamedly extol the virtues of street/pub fighting on multiple tracks, even though Meighan remains only as intimidating as a chubby faced guy in eye-liner and a Napoleon outfit can be (see: album cover). It appeals to the lowest common denominator, telling ordinary tales bereft of humour, irony or criticism that don’t hold a mirror up to society but celebrate its faults. ‘Underdog’ includes the lines “in a bar room brawl / the locals love a fighter / love a winner to fall,” while ‘Where Did All The Love Go?” opens with “Ever took a punch / in the rib cage, sonny?” – and that’s just the first two songs. Meighen then moves to superficially lament the illness of his world, of blood on the pavement, without the wits to see his contribution to it.

‘Secret Alphabets’ represents a similar problem to ‘Vlad’ – that even when the band try something different, through laziness or lack of boldness, they inevitably gravitate toward a safe centre. It begins with a spooky plod and their most measured vocal work yet before Meighan reverts back to his usual shout. It’s not a bad song, and Meighan’s yelling isn’t instantly offensive in and of itself, but by the final tracks its anthemic-reach has been completely undermined by over use. ‘Happiness’ shamelessly pillages Screamadelica-era Primal Scream; ‘Swarfiga’ an instrumental that gives unnecessary spotlight to the band’s musicality; and ‘Fast Fuse’ is really just a big bassline and self-satisfied vocal histrionics.

This album can’t be entirely bad since all it does is inspire me to return to Kasabian’s debut and listen to the original and superior template to what’s offered here. It’s cut from damp parts of that same cloth they once made feel almost fresh. There’s nothing as catchy, anthemic or original going on here, and no tongue-twisted title or desperate shout is going to compensate for it. Kasabian have hit a point of rapidly diminishing returns.

This album is not entirely the unmitigated disaster I’ve painted it, the problem is mainly that it fails as a single body of work. There’s enough here to appeal to fans, but the lack of dynamism coupled with the few-too-many weaker moments make listening in a single sitting more work than not. Still, heard in isolation, tracks like ‘Fire’ will rightly light up indie venues and, now three albums in, Kasabian have enough loud and catchy songs to fill out a decent set on a festival stage. Which, is something.