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Rock CDs: Kasabian Kasabian

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  • Rock CDs: Kasabian Kasabian

    SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
    September 05, 2004, Sunday

    Rock CDs

    By James Delingpole

    Kasabian Kasabian (RCA, pounds 12.99). Leicester's Kasabian think
    they're the new guardians of British rock 'n' roll. 'The Stones,
    Zeppelin, the Pistols, the Gallaghers, we're in that line,' says
    their singer Tom, and the damnedest thing is he might just be right:
    not since Oasis can I recall a debut of quite such magnificent verve
    and swagger.

    They're not as tight or clever as Franz Ferdinand, but then that's
    not their point: Kasabian (named after Charles Manson's female getaway
    driver - her surname means 'butcher' in Armenian) represent the bummed,
    druggy, louche end of rock. It's impossible to play them without
    wanting to load up on drink and drugs and spend all night dancing,
    which is what apparently goes on quite a lot on the 600-acre farm
    where they live, record and throw free festivals.

    They've got the cocky slouchiness and shuffling dance beat of the Happy
    Mondays, the psychedelic languor of the Stone Roses, the attitude of
    Oasis, the anthemic danciness of Stereo MCs. Who would have imagined
    that the early 1990s would have made a comeback quite so soon and so
    brilliantly reinvented? Truly Kasabian are the hound's testicles.

    The Libertines The Libertines (Rough Trade, pounds 13.99). In a
    survey last year of the greatest British pop bands, the Guardian
    decided The Libertines were even better than Radiohead and put them
    at number one. I'm not sure I'd go quite so far - can I ever imagine
    myself going: 'God, I just have to put on a Libertines record right
    this second, or I'll die'?

    No - but their second album does give you a good idea what the fuss
    is all about. It's excruciatingly honest - detailing the break-up of
    the fraught, intense, almost marital relationship between frontmen
    Carl Barat and heroin-addicted Pete Doherty. It has the throwaway
    assurance of a band that knows it's great and original and doesn't
    need to prove anything to anyone, and a sweet, eccentric, ramshackle
    English charm. As produced by Mick Jones it sounds a bit sludgy and
    home-made, but the heartfelt lyrics are compulsive and the debonairly
    punkish melodies do grow on you.

    Skinnyman Council Estate of the Mind (Low Life, pounds 13.99). You
    wouldn't guess it from his authentically black-sounding patois, but the
    much-praised north London rapper Skinnyman is in fact white. His tunes
    and samples aren't bad but is he the British Eminem? Not lyrically
    deft enough and way too earnest. Another Streets? Not funny enough.
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