Fans who thought the previous Kasabian album sounded like the inmates running the Pauper Asylum are in for a serious shock therapy session; new single ‘Switchblade Smiles‘ is possibly the most bonkers thing they’ve ever done.
With the lead track for their forthcoming album ‘Velociraptor!‘, the Leicester bunch have almost fully embraced their electronic urges with satantic synths edging it close to the heavy, big beat industrial crunch of The Prodigy.
But live drums that sound intent on summoning something unholy and dubbed guitar lines retain the rockier edge the band talked up prior to airing it last night.
Radio One jockey Zane Lowe said after its premiere play that it was “a bold statement, the sound of people marching into oblivion” and he’s right, but in fairness with such menace-breathing lead singles like ‘Empire‘ and ‘Fire‘ already under their belts we’ve come to expect this. A downright massive tune is the standard for Kasabian.
The closest they’ve touched on this kind of lunacy though was on ‘Vlad the Impaler‘ from previous album ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum‘, but admittedly most of that was due to its wacky video with comedian Noel Fielding as the titular Vlad and a bassline that sounded like it was being played through an amplified electric fence.
‘Switchblade…‘ however sounds like the electric fence juiced with another thousand volts of rumbling low end stuff and the Tarzanian jungle howls of Tom and Serge might make some think they’ve finally lost the plot.
But what it’s missing are the hooks that ‘Vlad…’ had in spades. Minus the senseless lyrics there was an immediate rooftop chant at the end of each bar which ‘Switchblade Smiles’ can’t claim to, it’s more brooding, perhaps a further attempt to shed the footy-soundtracking laddish torture they’re constantly labelled with.
What it definitely is a sign of though is progression, in that for once the driving instrumentals rather than Tom Meighan are at the forefront. One can only imagine what other slabs of madness inhabit ‘Velociraptor!’. By the title alone you would almost be afraid to wonder.
(Daniel Robinson)
