Empire

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Product description ------------------- KASABIAN Empire (2006 UK 11-track CD album - their 2nd album and the follow-up to their critically accled self-titled debut album and was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth and co-produced with Jim Abbiss [Arctic Monkeys Editors Ladytron]; and includes the singles Empire Shoot The Runner & Me Plus One picture sleeve PARADISE37) .co.uk ------ 'We're all wasting away!' barks vocalist Tom Meighan on the opening, title track to Kasabian's second album, Empire. A quick peek at the sales figures, however, proves that lean times are most certainly not on the horizon. After clocking up close to a million sales of their debut album, Leicester's post-baggy rock troupe have returned with an album that ramps up all their key hallmarks: the swagger of the Gallagher brothers, the wide-pupils euphoria of house/-rock, and the crushing, propulsive dancefloor heaviness of ed-up disco rabble-rousers Brothers and boy Slim. From "Last Trip (In Flight)", a sort of gospel-enhanced remake of Hawkwind's "Silver Machine", to the driving, techno-engineered "Stuntman", it's heavy on the choruses, heavy on the fireworks, and seemingly custom-made for a festival crowd – which is, of course, no bad thing. "British Legion" is a surprising stand-out, an Lennon-esque ballad accompanied by acoustic guitar. And while the mystic-tinged "Sun/Rise/Light/Flies" suggests that shimmering Indian strings might be becoming as much of a cliché as the bolt-on orchestra was in Britpop times, you somehow doubt Kasabian are at all bothered by the prospect of being too obvious. After all, it's the job of Empire to stamp Kasabian's name onto your face with a hob-nailed boot, and it succeeds in its mission admirably. –-Louis Pattison P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); BBC Review ---------- In a music world where bands are now made into legends on the back of one decent single, Kasabian are practically at god status, despite their decidedly average eponymous debut. If that album posed one question, it was whether the band lacked an extra dimension; an ability to write something other than a full-on chaotic anthem. Empire doesn't do anything to allay that worry, though it does at least show they've widened their musical references. Opening with the ridiculously pompous title track and rushing straight into a bizarre slab of glam rock in "Shoot The Runner", there's a distinct worry that the lads have lost it completely. Then "Last Trip (In Flight)" kicks in the tight beats and normal service is resumed. There are still hiccups, not least with the ballad "British Legion" and the Brothers outtake "Apnoea", but "Sun/Rise/Light/Flies" maddening epicness, the twisting techno throb of "Stuntman", and the closing swirling psychedelia of "The Doberman" do enough to fill in the major cracks in the album. Empire is an adequate successor to an adequate debut, but let's remember something. True musical legends have more than one string to their bow. It's time for Kasabian to find theirs. --Chris Long Find more music at the BBC ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/syn//albumreviews/-/music/ ) This link will take you off in a new window See more ( javascript:void(0) )