REVIEW: Kaiser Chiefs

ARTIST: Kaiser Chiefs
ALBUM: Yours Truly, Angry Mob
LABEL:B-Unique

PLATTENSPIELER RATING: 7.0/10



The first really big release of the year commercially, much rests on this one. Opening single 'Ruby' blasted into the upper echelons of the charts and its chant-pop thrills weren't lost on me. I am in fact a fan of this lot. Not a huge one, but half their first album was utterly fantastic. Thats the problem though, only half of it. The singles were all breathless post-Britpop stompers and all deserved their indie disco ubiquity. But the rest was true filler and spoiled the broth.

This time around, we're promised beefed up sounds and a more complete record than last time and it looks as though that's been achieved. 'Ruby' is a stormer, bouncing and singing along all over the shop but they continue the hot streak with 'The Angry Mob' and 'High Royds', both finding the midpoint between Blur at their most Kinks-y and Pulp in their populist pomp. The tunes are sprinkled so liberally throughout, you can barely believe the proliferation of moments that, by listen two, you are singing along to. The big problem, along with a few bits of substandard Oasis-lite filler, are Ricky Wilson's lyrics. His odd style of inverting certain sentences sounds primary school like in its naivety causes the songs to lose their power. Sometimes it works, lending a sing-a-long simplicity to the tracks but mostly, it brings it down.

No blockbuster then, not going to fire them into Oasis levels of fame. But another serviceable piece of blistering rock and pop for the masses to gobble up.