It starts with a gong. Oh yes, who else could it be other than Kasabian; a band who have always fascinated me for their huge popularity from writing music that doesn’t quite fit the cookie cutter template for your average rock band.
Just like any Kasabian album it is quite broad but unlike 2009’s ‘West Ryder’ the groups latest offering doesn’t see them expand as much musically but it does see them put far more emphasis on their melodies which is great. There’s a lot of string sections on here but the arrangements are hastily tagged onto the song so hopefully for next time the arrangements are more thought out.
That being said Kasabian are certainly trying a few new things this time round that work very well. With every other release they open the album with an all guns blazing approach, but ‘Lets Roll Just Like We Used To’ sees us being eased into proceedings.
Being an album of peaks and valleys it doesn’t take long before ‘Days Are Forgotten’ brings us into more familiar territory. With a chorus so big it’s only a matter of time before we see Kasabaian once again being the soundtrack to a multitude of Sky Sports ads (like it would be the first time). Not content however with keeping the track nice and simple they’ve gone and tagged the end of it with some wailing that certainly does nothing but detract from its impact. It comes across as trying too hard to be weird. Thankfully someone made the right call and left the wailing off the single version.
‘Goodbye Kiss’ is certainly the most poppy, with its reflective themes. We know from their past singles that Kasabian can write some killer tunes but on ‘Velociraptor!’ they’ve come on with leaps and bounds with their melodies. They’re still doing their balancing act of weird and normal, but Goodbye Kiss hints at some new potential. The comedown from ‘Goodbye Kiss’ is the absinthe tinged ‘La Fee Verte’ working as a great contrast from ‘Days Are Forgotten’ and ‘Goodbye Kiss’. If only the whole record was this consistent. Given the great opening four tracks Kasabian go and throw it all away on ‘Velociraptor’. Songs like this are the reason Kasabian have such a hard time getting taken seriously by a large portion of the music community (as was clear on Twitter during their recent Jools Holland appearance). After the seriousness of the earlier tracks they seem to get bored and just want to have a bit of fun. Not the actual fun but juvenile ‘pull my finger’ fun. The same goes for ‘I Hear Voices’ which loses all artistic credibility once Meighan starts to use Yosemite Sam as a reference.
‘Acid Turkish Baths (Shelter From the Storm)’ is one of the most interesting tracks on ‘Velociraptor’. From the eastern key to the off kilter melody. It meanders from one groove to another. Toms melody holds the song together with an interesting arrangement from Serge that drifts in and out.
Sadly ‘Acid Turkish Baths’ is both the albums high water mark for both Kasabian pushing themselves but it also represents the point where the quality drops drastically.
‘Re-wired’ is nothing groundbreaking musically with toms strenuous melody holding an otherwise forgettable song together. ‘Man of Simple Pleasures’ comes slogging in and proceeds with nothing to add but some album filler.
‘Switchblade Smiles’ has Kasabian referring to their earlier electronic but is too far buried in filler tracks by the time it comes around that you’ve already an opinion formed on the record that won’t be changed no matter how dirty its synth is.
The album as a whole comes across as stepping stone to what their next record could ultimately be. They’ve made some huge strides over their last four albums. If Kasabian can take the electronica from their debut, the mainstream quirkiness from ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’ and the emphasis on melody this time round, build on them then we should see a very interesting fifth album from these Leicester lads.