Album Review - Kaiser Chiefs: Start The Revolution Without Me

Kaiser Chiefs
Start The Revolution Without Me
Rating: Meh

British quintet Kaiser Chiefs came of age around the same time as UK contemporaries Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, and Kasabian but, despite initial success, has suffered from a distinct lack of personality. Their first album Employment hit all the marks for a mix of new-wave, punk, and post-punk, but subsequent albums have felt rather flat and lifeless. Last year in the UK they released 20 songs to the Internet and allowed fans to pick and choose ten songs to make their own album. The band eventually released their own selection of 12 tracks in the UK under the title The Future Is Medieval, which was not released in the US. Here, they have released Start The Revolution Without Me, which contains a few songs from Medieval, some from the online release, as well as a new track, all in a completely different running order. This ramshackle way of putting the album together has made for quite the schizophrenic listening experience, with the album feeling more like a collection of random tracks than anything thematically or musically linked. The songs run the gamut from stadium ready anthems to edgy post-punk guitar numbers to slinky synthpop riffs. There is no real intro into this record, you are basically thrown in and it is sink or swim.

Oddly, the tracks that stand out the most are the least "Kaiser Chiefs" sounding, like the bizarre 80s new wave ripping synth-rock of "Heard It Break," which adds a slight reggae tinge to the bridge.



The Bowie-aping jagged funk of "Things Change" sticks a little too close to the melody of "Fame," but is refreshing change from the generic anthem rock of the majority of other tracks.



"Man On Mars," produced by Bowie producer Tony Visconti, while not sounding specifically Bowie-esque, has an epic feel to it, without feeling labored or tossed off.



And I enjoyed the spiky guitars and driving rhythm of the pop-punk "Problem Solved."



But aside from a couple of glimmers of life on Start The Revolution Without Me, the album is surprisingly inert. Several times I thought my iPod switched over to random and I was hearing the same track again. "Child of the Jago," "Starts With Nothing," and "Cousin In The Bronx" feature similar vocal melodies that cause a bit of confusion. And the fact that the tracks musical accompaniment have little to know character to distinguish them makes for difficult listening.

The remaining tracks are vaguely entertaining Britpop, like the poppy "On The Run,"



pub crawl sing-a-log "Kinda Girl You Are,"



and fuzzy, ragged guitar pop of "Can't Mind My Own Business."



But as a whole, none of these tracks really come together as a cohesive statement; something to bring you back to experience something new each time. What you hear is what you get and, unfortunately, it fades away after each listen.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.