Kasabian
West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum

And so we begin the adventure of writing my first de-review, with a sentence that starts with a conjunction, as if to pick up a conversation that was interrupted, discussing and ruminating on an album that is now a few years old but still pleases me greatly, ça va sans dire! Otherwise, why review it?

The work in question represents, in its being the controversial and debated product of an equally controversial and debated band - those Kasabian from Leicester, UK - a conjunction between the explosive sounds of their self-titled debut "Kasabian", repeated although in a minor key on the subsequent "Empire", and the at times dancefloor visions, with groove and hip hop touches, of their later works, particularly "Velociraptor", with the famous producer Dan the Automator aiding the band's work.

In between, as both a breaking point and a union of opposites, in the best tradition of dialectics, stands "West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum": a title reminiscent of a self-proclaimed Victorian mental asylum, where perhaps our beloved band would have been welcomed with open arms back in the day, along with a nice straitjacket to wear, for a rehab from the abuse of substances more or less legal.

The album by the band of Sergio "Serge" Pizzorno, the musical and thinking mind, and Thomas Peter Meighan JR (known as Tom to his friends), lead vocals, face, and cheeky frontman, represents a breaking point, an attempt in my opinion mostly successful, to infuse a sweaty and psychedelic rock verve into the post-brit pop Madchester style, tainted with guitars and some electro-dance shifts that distinguish their trademark.

It ranges from the deserter song atmospheres with Seventies influences of the now super classic anthem "Fire", which evokes for me the wedding scene of the Bride in "Kill Bill" celebrated in the desert chapel (no need to recall how it ends...), to the vaguely Arabian inserts of "Where Did All the Love Go?", which according to the band draw inspiration from certain Led Zeppelin insights, like "Kashmir" to be clear, up to the almost gospel sound of the closing title, "Happiness", sweet, serene and indeed radiating happiness.

In between, they are the standard-bearers of the Kasabian tradition, the edgy "Fast Fuse" and the bloody and fast "Vlad the Impaler", which when performed live always unleashes pandemonium among the audience.

My favorite track, however, remains "Underdog", the album's opener: a song that encapsulates the entire essence of this record. It speaks of outsiders, of those who start disadvantaged (of "underdogs", namely losers), of those who, like Leicester City FC, of which Kasabian are big fans, start their adventure without any chance of winning, but then, by sticking to their path without being distracted by the alluring calls of the sirens and the catastrophic prophecies of the sibyls, with commitment and determination, surprisingly win the Premier League!

"West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum" is overall a melancholic, angry, phlegmatic, and fiery album: everything and its opposite. One either adores it or hates it, just as happens with this group, without middle ground. It's a shame it didn't follow up, and there was a return to more chart-friendly musical formulas.

Sure, they haven't invented anything new, they know how to ride the wave of public approval, and in this respect, they have turned out to be, over the years, a perfect and successful solid pop group. The accusations of megalomania directed at the album and the band have always seemed out of place to me, after all, we're not talking about naive newcomers, but accomplished musicians who have every right to experiment with their sound, and who in the live dimension know how to create an intense and engaging show, where moments of pure fun and stadium anthem-like singalongs are not lacking. Then if you're drunk and let yourself go to statements like, to just name a few:

"We are the number one band in the world.", or: "At high levels in the indie rock guitar scene there's only us and the Arctic Monkeys left, maybe the Kaiserchiefs", (source interviews to NME)

like what happened to Tom Meighan, you certainly risk arousing some antipathy... but let's not dramatize too much, it’s just the legacy of the bad influence exercised by their godfathers Oasis.

I think it's unnecessary to add that I am part of the group of Kasabian worshippers, who forgive Tom everything, like a younger brother, and that I can't wait to see them live again!

"It don’t matter, I won’t do what you say
You’ve got the money and the power, I won’t go your way
I can’t take from the people, they don’t matter at all
I’ll be waiting in the shadows till the day that you fall"