Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 08/06/09
Label: Columbia

It's a trick conducted by many a band a few albums into their "career". Minus an inspired, brave new direction or any kind of tangible ideas to speak of it's the trusty old gimmick that becomes a group's raison d'être. In the case of Leicester four-piece Kasabian, a band that shamelessly stole from the laconic psychedelia of Manchester's baggy scene and the don't-give-a-f*ck rock'n'roll arrogance of the Gallagher brothers grim, their artifice of choice is to go a little bit further out there - to tread the fine line between genius and madness, erring on the side of genius, of course. Or so they think.

And so, for their third studio release, "West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum", Kasabian have donned some wacky regalia for their album cover art (a priest's robe, Napoleonic attire, a fur coat resembling what looks like a yeti) and declared themselves to be heretics of British rock with "Vlad The Impaler". One must applaud the Leicester act on their unflinching self-belief, because in one sense they have deviated from the path of base lad-rock that they were so accustomed to on their self-titled debut and 2006's "Empire".

For example, "Ladies And Gentlemen (Roll The Dice)" opens up like a hillbilly version of Julee Cruise's "Falling" (made famous for its use on David Lynch's eerily surreal "Twin Peaks"). "Secret Alphabets" steals (rather shamefully, Yahoo! Music might add) from DJ Shadow's "Organ Donor", while "Swarfiga" is an instrumental jazz funk take on Ennio Morricone.

What pulls this album back from being anything but revelatory, however, is not only the typical lazy rock the band are purveyors of, especially "Fire" and "Fast Fuse", but also the diabolical lyrical content that's employed throughout "West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum". The aforementioned "Vlad The Impaler" makes it easy to laugh at Kasabian's arrogance. That they are so blindingly cocksure in their own hype as musical messiahs of our time is baffling.

Equally, on "Where Did All The Love Go", where Tom Meighan wails like he's hailed straight from the Mississippi Delta, "The rivers on the pavement are flowing now with blood / The children of the future are downing in the flood", Kasabian may claim that they are addressing "Broken Britain", but sadly this merely resonates more with a vision of the UK as Enoch Powell envisioned it. Madness indeed.

    by Ash Dosanjh