West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum Review

If you asked me after the release of Empire; “Have Kasabian lost their touch?” I would easily have answered yes. Now, I enjoyed their second album, but it was not a patch on their self-titled debut. It had a few stand out tracks but was mired with lack-lustre quality in my opinion. They seemed to be going down the route of their self-admitted idols, Oasis. Releasing samey music year after year in an attempt to recapture their glorydays. However, Kasabian have proved me wrong. This album is simply stunning. They’re back on form.

I always remember reading the front of their debut, it had a quote from the Observer saying that it was the album “Stone Roses’ Second Coming should/could/would of sounded like” and I actually really agreed with that statement. I thought that with Empire they were repeating the mistakes of the legendary Ian Brown-led outfit but West Ryder is what Empire should of been. It is such a revelation to the talent of this seemingly ‘lad-rock’ band. The music here makes them much more than that. This is just as good, if not better than their fantastic debut album.

Right from the off, with the intro ‘Underdog’ (recently used in a Sony Bravia ad with Kaka) which is so hard hitting with it’s electronic distortion-like effect and heavy guitar kicking straight in. It’s so reminiscent of their first album, it’s fantastic. Formerly released tracks like ‘Fast Fuse’ and the free to download earlier this year ‘Vlad the Impaler’ are still amazing tracks, that fit in around the rest of the album. I think the latter’s album version is also different to the freely distributed one though. Lead single for the album ‘Fire’ is equally as impressive, it’s danceable chorus and great guitar are a great cohesive part of this body of work. What it ends with though, is ‘Happiness’ a song sounding very familiar and in my opinion, the antithesis to Primal Scream’s ‘Movin’ on Up’, its actually a slow, winding down that works well to compliment the rest of the album with it’s soothing song and gospel choir.

8.5/10

Album is released 8th June, get it here

Fast Fuse