Since word one – in the title of their debut single, Club Foot – Kasabian set out to be the British rock band you could move to. To their critics they were more like Oasis copyists with syncopation, and the moves they inspired were more lathered lurches rather than anything you'd see in a high-end Berlin warehouse. But Kasabian's propulsive way with a groove accounts for how, during the course of a decade, this foursome have progressed from being a neo-baggy anachronism to perhaps the nation's foremost party band. They're headlining Glastonbury in a fortnight and it doesn't feel unnatural.
On their fifth outing, Kasabian's groove has discovered a stash of anabolic steroids. The moves here run the gamut from belligerently derivative to deft confidence. All the promotional fighting talk around 48:13 has been about how direct it is, and the title and tracklisting reflect this – all times, no titles, at least until you consult iTunes. There's not a lot of fat, but honed, emphatic efficiency. The dynamics of these songs are often cribbed from clubland, one big on the 90s influence – there's more than a whiff of the Chemical Brothers – with a side order of right-about-now. These synth lines, bass builds and drops augment Kasabian's core guitar music values – the riffing, the posturing, the chanting-instead-of-singing. It's all there on the single, Eez-eh, a laser-guided galumph so ridiculous it becomes difficult to dislodge from your brain – or to dislike.
Sync agents looking for soundbeds to accompany the World Cup won't want for material. Sure, Bumblebeee – the album's proper opening gambit – might contain an overt drug reference ("I'm in ecstasy!" insists singer Tom Meighan). But bowdlerised, the tune has a great deal else to commend it to mass sporting events. It comes crashing in on the chorus. That chorus is basically just shouting, preceded by the words "Everybody go!" Below the parapet lurks intriguing detail – a slinky middle eight, say – but this is pile-driving electronic rock made for the big occasions. Doomsday is glam ska-pop pushed through an electronic filter, but equally primed to detonate moshpits.
Subtle it's not – at least, not at the level of primary interface. There's a lot going on below stairs, but the tall, shouty man is a big distraction. Meighan is Kasabian's gangly, bug-eyed lead singer, a figure who brings gonzoid attitude and everyman appeal but precious little else. "What you see is what you get with me," he offers at one point. When he pauses, you positively warm to Kasabian.
The album's seven-minute centrepiece, Treat – a song about how Kasabian's evil partying twins get the better of them – has a glacial synth disco coda of nearly three minutes. It's far better a passage of music than you might imagine, a 12-inch remix of itself in which the percolating elements are the opposite of filler.
Meighan is dearly loved, though, by mainman Serge Pizzorno. Crickets chirping, lap steel, string sections and wooh-woohs: he lays them all at his bandmate's feet on album closer SPS. It's a shame they come with sub-Oasis balladry attached.
Two tracks attempt to insert some thought into these post-match celebrations. Glass is a big beat hark-back featuring the spoken word artist Suli Breaks. Explodes, meanwhile, talks of dying on your feet (in the dance tent, presumably) rather than living on your knees. The music features sub-bass wub-wubs, and analogue melodies redolent of Kraftwerk. The politics – indeed, most of the words here – are just a distraction.
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