Album of 2006: Kasabian – Empire

11Dec06

Overall I’m not too sure that 2006 has been a particularly vintage year for great albums. If Snow Patrol’s fairly harmless but ultimately light-weight ‘Eyes Open’ can be one of the more highly lauded albums of the past twelve months then the selection wasn’t exactly enormous.

For me, the standout pair by quite some distance were Muse’s ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ and ‘Empire’ by Kasabian. In comparison to their contemporaries, these two bands are leagues ahead in terms of what they have produced in 2006.

Muse were astoundingly cocky to release ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ as their comeback single and as an album ‘Black Holes’ is delightfully varied in tone but reliably consistent in quality.

Kasabian on the other hand had been sitting on the cusp full-on mainstream recognition following the success of their self-titled debut album in 2004 and needed a big follow-up to tip them over the edge. They had the looks, they had the attitude, but did they have the tunes? With ‘Empire’ we got the answer and thankfully it was a resounding ‘yes’.

Forget the epic levels of swearing, the rock god posturing or the being-friends-with-Noel-Gallagher, the Kasabian boys know how to write a good song or two.

So let’s start at the beginning with ‘Empire’, the title track and the first single. In true Kasabian style it’s utterly brainless and the time change in the middle sounds like it really shouldn’t work. However, for all of this, it’s a classic single. Serge and Tom proved they could do big singles with tracks like ‘Club Foot’ and ‘L.S.F.’ and ‘Empire’ (both the track and the album) is no let down on that score.

Second single ‘Shoot the Runner’ ticks all the right boxes despite being a sort of glam-indie dance hybrid. Like a lot of Kasabian songs it takes a little bit of time to get into, however once you’re there it’s just the most amazing 3-minute adrenalin rush. Listening to ‘Shoot the Runner’ just makes me want to go out and get an ASBO.

So the singles were up to scratch, always good news, but what about the rest of the album? Well, the lads extend their repertoire in surprising directions, from the ‘Second Coming’-esque ‘Stuntman’, to the sublime acoustica of ‘Me Plus One’ and the epicness of closing track ‘The Doberman’.

Low-tech acoustic ballad ‘British Legion’ makes the entire career of the Arctic Monkeys and their dubious scene buddies redundant in just over three minutes, whilst the understated ‘By My Side’ slowly reveals its pounding awesomeness.

Elsewhere there is the more standard Kasabian fare on ‘Sun Rise Light Flies’ and ‘Last Trip (In Flight)’, but the pace rarely drops. There are a couple of weaker moments, however they flash by so fast, it’s barely worth worrying about them.

With ‘Empire’ Kasabian have created a melting pot of an album that tries to be everything to everyone and in the most part is successful. I have never really seen where the comparison between Kasabian and Oasis developed (except maybe the attitude), however if ‘Kasabian’ was the new ‘Definitely Maybe’, then ‘Empire’ is the new ‘Morning Glory’.

Everything that is great about Kasabian is on this album in exactly the proportions you would wish for, and you cannot really ask for more than that.

Kasabian – Empire
Released: August 26th 2006
Length: 39:05
Label: Columbia
Producer: Jim Abbiss
Reviews: 4.5/5 NME, 4/5 Q, 3/5 The Guardian, 3/5 The Times
Highest Chart Ranking: #1
Singles: Empire, Shoot the Runner, Me Plus One (to be released Jan 2007)

Filed under: Music   |  3 Comments
Tags: empire, kasabian, muse, Music, oasis, pop, rock, shoot the runner, tom meighan