Kasabian are back with a new album, but without a vocalist

Rock soul wide open

For Russians, the participants of Kasabian, frankly, are not strangers. Those with a good memory remember their deafening concert sets, the last of which thundered in the capital in 2017. Five years later, of course, no one is waiting for the British to visit, but there is still an opportunity to listen to their new music, albeit in an illegal mode.

The Alchemist’s Euphoria is the band’s seventh album, and it seems to have everything for which many have managed to fall in love with Kasabian. Eardrum-testing rock, playful rave vibes, subtle flirtations with hip-hop and a lot of informal charm. The single Alygatyr was released last year, and on the whole it gives a clear idea of ​​the whole record, although it does not reveal its scope. There is really a lot of things on the album, and so much that the musicians did not bring all the ideas to their logical conclusion. However, this is in the tradition of Kasabian, and some laxity here can be called part of the overall design.

But what’s missing on this release are the voices of frontman Tom Meighan. In the summer of 2020, the vocalist was accused of assaulting his girlfriend. Mr. Meighan pleaded guilty in full, worked two hundred hours for the good of the community, and even paid his girlfriend’s medical bills for a whopping ninety pounds. Then the rock star took up the treatment of alcoholism and putting mental health in order. At the end of this campaign, he got married and decided that without a rock band he would live much better.

Tom’s colleagues were sympathetic to this decision, and the position of vocalist was transferred to guitarist and main author of the group Sergio Pizzorno (pictured). It would be unfair to say that the new vocalist is not doing well. When necessary, he shouts, when necessary he reads. But he does it, unlike Meygan, somehow less irresistibly. With the new Kasabian songs, in general, you won’t get bored, but the nostalgia for the former sweeping and gopnicheskoy vocals has already appeared.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28848 dated August 17, 2022

Newspaper headline:
Rock soul wide open