Album Review: Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum

Back in 2004 when Kasabian released their debut album, I hated it. I thought they sounded like Oasis wannabes who weren't as good. And I detest Oasis.

But over time I bagan to change my mind, as the radio and just about everyone I knew increasingly raved about Kasabian. So I got a copy of the album, listened to it a couple more times and finally realised how wonderful it is.

Two long years later when Empire came out, I was slobbering at the prospect of a whole new Kasabian album to listen to. It did not disappoint, not one iota. And when I saw them live at the Hyrdo Connect festival last year through a haze of beer and vodka, I was totally hooked.

Finally, here we are in June 2009 and they have released their third full album - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. And it's terrifically up to the job.

The wonderfully paced and catchy Underdog is the perfect introduction to the album, which is designed to be a single piece of music rather than twelve seperate tracks, with each song melting into one another with carefully planned transitions. It quickly reminds you of the things you love about Kasabian, with its strong and addictive drum beats, coupled with psychodelic guitar solos.

Take Aim, with its intense orchestral beginning, takes you deeper into the technicolour, drug fuelled minds of the band and is truly different to the music they've produced before. With the 'mentally unstable' theme, Secret Alphabets adopts a nice sixties theme to it, with the traditional oscillating flutes and violins giving a kind of creepy 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest' vibe.

Probably my favourite song, Fire will undoubtedly be a concert anthem with its sleepy eyed, drowsy beginning which bursts into life as if the madman has lost the plot. Which I'm looking forward to witnessing at the gig at the O2 Academy in Glasgow on June 18. I don't normally drink that much, but I intend to tan quite a few beers before that gig so I can assimilate myself into the wild light and music show.

Rather than creating the album and then wondering if it was any good, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum was made by a band who knew it was going to be good the whole time they were making it. It comes across as confident, defiant and crisp, and will no doubt lead them to the position of domination they crave.

The love affair continues.

The Greatest Album Of All Time

Music is a gift. We could so easily have existed without the ability to enjoy the sound of noises joined together in a melodic fashion, without the inbuilt appreciation of the harmony of two voices singing together.

Yet we've been given music. It can make us contemplate our future lives and fondly recall the past, it can make the hairs on our neck stand up and it can make us want to jump up and down.

I was thinking, if I was going to prison to spend twenty years in solitary confinement, if I was allowed to take one album with me, which would it be? Which album would I never tire of listening to, day in, day out? Which album has so many layers that I would spot something new every time I listened to it? Which album is so beautiful and perfectly composed that you wonder how it was possible to create such a perfect piece of music?

There are 8,500 tracks on my iPod, but for me there is no doubt, there is only one group of songs which come together to form my winning album. And it's the winner by a clear mile.

What's the album? It's Pulse, by Pink Floyd.

Recorded at Earl's Court in 1994, it was part of the Division Bell tour and is now known as one of the greatest live recordings of all time. Without a doubt in my mind, I think it is the greatest. It's a towering work of art in musical form, and when you watch the DVD you can appreciate it along with the incredible laser show which accompanied it during Pink Floyd's fourteen night residency at Earl's Court.

Why is it victorious? Well firstly, it's two discs, so that's pretty good value if you were only going to be allowed one album in prison!

For me, everything about it is perfect. It's missing nothing from the original album recordings, all of the sound effects are there in full stereophonic glory. The songs are faithfully reproduced and there is no self indulgent tampering or messing around to show off, as so many bands do when playing live.

It takes me back to my childhood, specifically a holiday in France in 1989 when I was five. I remember sitting in the back of my Dad's Ford Granada, caravan on tow listening to Breathe, from The Dark Side of the Moon.

I reckon if an album can impress you when you're five, then it must be doing something right. The sounds of that album have stayed with me ever since, so whenever I listen to Pulse it takes me back to my childhood, which I loved.

Some have slated Pulse, saying that was borne of a middle aged band who had become 'comfortably numb' after years of touring, and after Roger Waters had departed. They had become accustomed to playing only their hits, and apparently displayed a startling lack of passion considering their auspicious careers.

These critics are wrong.

I think that quite the opposite is true. I don't profess to being a 'Floyd' expert by any means, but you can feel the blood of The Dark Side of the Moon pulsing through your body as the sounds and sights wash over you. For example, Us and Them sounds aspirational, yet it's about conflict, differences of opinion, apathy and misunderstanding. Why make a song with depressing lyrics sound depressing? With this Pulse song in particular, Pink Floyd did quite the opposite.

I've said enough. Get the DVD, plug in a decent amp and some speakers, turn the lights down and the sound up, and decide for yourself if you agree that Pulse is indeed one of the greatest albums of all time.

Album Review: Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

Elbow recently won a Brit award for being Britain's Best Group. I'm no proponent of the Brit awards, or indeed very much of the music that it features or glorifies.

For example, in my opinion it's a travesty that Duffy beat Radiohead to the best album award. Duffy's album is very middle of the road. She sounds like she has a cold throughout the entire recording, and the songs are overrated and overplayed. I do have a copy of Rockferry, so I'm not completely biased.

Conversely, Radiohead's album In Rainbows is one of the greatest albums of the past few years. It's beautifully composed, beautifully arranged and marks the return of Radiohead to the same planet Earth from which we watched as they took a tour of far away worlds in their past few albums, squinting our eyes and covering our ears as their confusion created sounds which distanced themselves from so many of the fans who had followed them from childhood.

Listening to In Rainbows gives me the same warm feeling you get when someone you have missed comes home, an inner satisfaction that Thom Yorke and friends have realised that their earliest recordings were in fact their greatest, and that to progress without taking steps backwards into their past, they should fuse their recent recording style with the magic of their grass roots.

So when comparing the likes of 'Nude' to 'Mercy', I struggle to see the merit in recognising Duffy as having produced the greatest album of the past year.

Finally, to the point. With this mistrust of the judgement of the voting public in mind, when I saw Elbow receiving the Best British Group award I was a bit perplexed, because I didn't really know much about them. But when they played back a montage of their songs, I immediately understood. So many of the tracks which Elbow have produced are songs which I've loved, and yet never known who they belonged to.

As a result, I've been listening to The Seldom Seen Kid, and it's absolutely brilliant.

It's aspirational and lyrically brilliant. So good that I can listen to certain songs from the album (Starlings, Mirrorball, One Day Like This), get shivers up my spine and immediately play them again. Parts of the album sound like a mix of Sigur Ros and (oddly enough) Crowded House, where others sound totally unique.

I think one of the things I like most about it is that it sounds 'pure', like it hasn't been too heavily interfered with in post-production, as if it will sound exactly the same when you hear it live.

I love those occasions when you listen to an album that's so good you can get a little excited about it, especially when you consider that there'll be more albums coming your way which are of a similar calibre.

So throw those curtains wide, get a copy of The Seldom Seen Kid, turn up the volume and let the Vino Di Vici flow like a river in spring, and sit back and enjoy the uplifting experience.

After all, it's perfect weather to fly.