Kasabian – Velociraptor!
We are told by BBC Nature that ‘Velociraptors were made famous in the film ‘Jurassic Park’, though they were a little less impressive in reality, standing not much taller than domestic turkeys’. How apt then that the Corporation have managed to pen a review for Kasabian’s new album without even knowing it.
Granted, ‘Switchblades Smiles’ has a real swagger and is quite thrilling in parts, but that’s enough of being positive because the rest of Velociraptor! sounds like a sort of prehistoric Brit pop that requires a vicious and crippling ice age to freeze it away somewhere. This is no more evident on the sub Oasis ‘Man Of Simple Pleasures’ which makes Liam Gallagher sound like a great songwriter (that is not a compliment).
Equally the lyrics on this album confirm suspicions that the standard of A Level English Literature is dramatically declining as evidenced by the horrible ‘Le Fée Verte’ where Tom Meighan manages to sing in his somewhat atonal whine the following words “Oh green fairy/ What you’ve done to me/There’s a nothing in the sky/Waiting to get high/I went up for some milk/Three days ago/Now they crowd me in the street /You knock me off my feet” . The language of Shakespeare and Dickens has truly seen better days and let’s not even get started on the horrible ‘Acid Turkish Bath’!
Some will argue that Kasabian are now the biggest band in the country and by virtue of the fact that they sell shed loads of records and pack out medium size stadiums then they must be great. Sadly, they are not and while they seemed to be making some forward progress with West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum , this new album finds them stuck in reverse gear producing music that you could file alongside Embrace or The Twang .
Truly, if this is the best that the alleged premier British rock band can offer aren’t we all a bit concerned? According to one source on the internet it is rumoured that this record is being talked about as next years Mercury Prize Winner? Following the high water mark set by P J Harvey’s stunning Let England Shake succeeding that with Velociraptor! would really be a pile of Brontosaurus droppings.