Product description
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KASABIAN Empire (2006 UK 11-track CD album - their 2nd album and
the follow-up to their critically accled self-titled debut
album and was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth and
co-produced with Jim Abbiss [Arctic Monkeys Editors Ladytron];
and includes the singles Empire Shoot The Runner & Me Plus One
picture sleeve PARADISE37)
.co.uk
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'We're all wasting away!' barks vocalist Tom Meighan on the
opening, title track to Kasabian's second album, Empire. A quick
peek at the sales figures, however, proves that lean times are
most certainly not on the horizon. After clocking up close to a
million sales of their debut album, Leicester's post-baggy rock
troupe have returned with an album that ramps up all their key
hallmarks: the swagger of the Gallagher brothers, the wide-pupils
euphoria of house/-rock, and the crushing, propulsive
dancefloor heaviness of ed-up disco rabble-rousers
Brothers and boy Slim. From "Last Trip (In Flight)", a sort of
gospel-enhanced remake of Hawkwind's "Silver Machine", to the
driving, techno-engineered "Stuntman", it's heavy on the
choruses, heavy on the fireworks, and seemingly custom-made for a
festival crowd which is, of course, no bad thing. "British
Legion" is a surprising stand-out, an Lennon-esque ballad
accompanied by acoustic guitar. And while the mystic-tinged
"Sun/Rise/Light/Flies" suggests that shimmering Indian strings
might be becoming as much of a cliché as the bolt-on orchestra
was in Britpop times, you somehow doubt Kasabian are at all
bothered by the prospect of being too obvious. After all, it's
the job of Empire to stamp Kasabian's name onto your face with a
hob-nailed boot, and it succeeds in its mission admirably.
-Louis Pattison
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BBC Review
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In a music world where bands are now made into legends on the
back of one decent single, Kasabian are practically at god
status, despite their decidedly average eponymous debut.
If that album posed one question, it was whether the band lacked
an extra dimension; an ability to write something other than a
full-on chaotic anthem. Empire doesn't do anything to allay that
worry, though it does at least show they've widened their musical
references.
Opening with the ridiculously pompous title track and rushing
straight into a bizarre slab of glam rock in "Shoot The Runner",
there's a distinct worry that the lads have lost it completely.
Then "Last Trip (In Flight)" kicks in the tight beats and normal
service is resumed.
There are still hiccups, not least with the ballad "British
Legion" and the Brothers outtake "Apnoea", but
"Sun/Rise/Light/Flies" maddening epicness, the twisting techno
throb of "Stuntman", and the closing swirling psychedelia of "The
Doberman" do enough to fill in the major cracks in the album.
Empire is an adequate successor to an adequate debut, but let's
remember something. True musical legends have more than one
string to their bow. It's time for Kasabian to find theirs.
--Chris Long
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