Music

They’re hugely entertaining, without a doubt. The soundbites of Serge Pizzorno and Tom Meighan are fast becoming as legendary as Liam’s bafflingly opaque pronouncements, while their band’s cast-iron self-belief makes Oasis seem like a model of modesty. It was the Gallaghers who inspired the two Leicester teens to form lairy rock ’n’ prole four-piece Kasabian, although their debut LP from 2004 skipped a branch of the Britrock family tree and appeared as a neo-baggy homage to The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Primal Scream. Critics sniffed. The Kids went mad for it and bought 70,000 copies.

Whichever side of the Kasabian fence you’re on – sceptical onlooker who’s literally heard it all before or fervent believer who knows that this music is made for raving, not reflection – album number two has sparked much interest. It’s been claimed that Kasabian have shrugged off the influences that defined their debut and forged their own distinct identity; this is both accurate and absurd. ‘Empire’ reveals a laudable new focus of terrifying, gimlet-eyed intensity, but essentially they’ve just streamlined their sources. With Pizzorno’s electronic noise further to the fore, the band now dance to the beat of Primal Scream’s ‘Exterminator’, rather than ‘Screamadelica’ and The Chemical Brothers at their casuals-on-E peak. Echoes are everywhere, from the (terrific) dark ’n’ dirty electro-punk of ‘Stuntman’ to the blokey psychedelia that is ‘Last Trip (In Flight)’ and their reworking of ‘Setting Sun’ as ‘Sun/Rise/ Light/Flies’.

‘The Doberman’ proves that Kasabian’s Oasis fixation hasn’t entirely bitten the dust, while ‘British Legion’ is a grisly shot at Dylan’s soulful introspection.

None of this will bother Kasabian’s tribe of saucer-eyed hedonists, who were ten years old a decade ago and have never heard of the Lo-Fi Allstars. ‘The Empire’ isn’t striking back, simply flying the flag for rave-rock’s third generation. That might just be enough.