Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album
Album by Kaiser Chiefs
Released 1 March 2024
Pop Rock
Label – V2
Rating – 3/10
Mm, not really sure why I reviewed this.
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I remember being a little bit irked by Kaiser Chiefs cleaning up their act. Bad-mannered social ambivalence traded its scruffy barnet for a nicer haircut over a decade ago, possibly coinciding with frontman Ricky Wilson landing a job as a judge on The Voice. I don’t mean to imply they were ever gutsier or more essential than some of the better British rock bands of their era (Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys etc.), nor do I mean to come across more irked by such trivial things than I am by real problems, but I always felt the band’s ability to make a decent pop hit out of a snotty nose was far more commendable than totally playing it safe, initially separating them from the rest of the landfill indie pack.
And now I miss Kaiser Chiefs actually being boring. Or do I? I mean, I hate to be bored, especially by music, but on their Easy Eighth Album, the Yorkshiremen redesign themselves as fun-loving heat-seekers willing to dumb themselves down as long as the kids like them. They’ve making diabolical songs about dancing, with How 2 Dance fronting the album with a cool boy funk ditty, showing the Chiefs’ collective age by fishing synths from their favourite ‘90s hip hop track to accompany vocals that force themselves out of maturity like a shoehorn made by a brand that targets impressionable young people. They’re making songs about “feeling alright”, smothering opener Feeling Alright with basic funk guitar licks, a terrible gloss of paint, and some form of Fall Out Boy impression.
Somehow, they still find time to be boring, impersonating Chris Martin with a stuffy nose over the trite pop rock of Burning in Flames. Sentimental Love Songs is your token indie frat song compulsorily justifying itself with a slight ‘80s aesthetic, whilst Jealousy tries to freshen things up by being as friendly a radio rock song as possible.
I suppose Noel Groove sounds like a classic Kaiser Chiefs song to some degree, and a song called The Job Centre Shuffle gives the album a bit of a backbone, but to say there isn’t enough backbone on Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album would be an understatement.
Worst track – Feeling Alright.
Rating – 3 out of 10
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