His self-titled album under that moniker, which featured rappers Little Simz and Slowthai, ached with woozy, bluesy, minimalist comedown tunes. In 2020, the day after his departure from Kasabian was announced, he was convicted of assaulting his partner, and in due course Pizzorno decided he was going to take centre stage. Perhaps the band’s biggest problem, almost 25 years in, is that those choruses have begun to dry up. Kasabian’s future seemed very much in doubt without their former frontman to sell the band’s unique brand of psychedelic party anthems. Forse uno dei migliori dischi dei Kasabian, a mio parere, la voce di Tom Meighan non manca affatto, Sergio Pizzorno si è preso sulla spalle tutta la band e la produzione sonora e dei testi, un gran bel lavoro che rende anche molto bene nei live.

And that presence is needed when you’re delivering lyrics such as: “Jet packs / Life in a simulator / Drip feed / Straight to the incubator. Although Pizzorno’s reedy squeak usually sounds more suited to psych-folk played in regional arts centres, Meighan was always better on stage than in the studio, and is only missed here for his ability to sell a chorus. Song titles sound like things you’d hear shouted outside the pub at closing time: Wasted, Are You Looking for Action?His voice is pleasant enough, and it doesn’t feel out of place, but there’s nothing distinctive about it; none of Meighan’s come-and-have-a-go presence.

New single ‘Scriptvre’ arrives in the wake of their snappy track ‘Alygatyr’ and heralds a brave new world from Serge’s magic kingdom.Was aber gar nicht geht - auch wenn Kasabian hierauf keinen maßgeblichen Einfluss haben - ist die flächendeckend zunehmend miese Verpackung. Serge, always the chin-stroking auteur to Meighan’s endorphin-inducing rabble-rouser, had to – as he puts it on this album’s ravey ‘SCRVPTURE’ – “reach for the mic as I walk from the shadow”. Musikalisch vielleicht eines der besten Kasabian Alben – hierfür gibt es von mir die volle Punktzahl. Later, on the marching ‘STRICTLY OLD SKOOL’, Serge champions those outside-the-box thinkers who can’t be contained by other people’s expectations: “You’re Dr.

Pizzorno wasn’t exactly Thom Yorke, pushing the band into wildly uncommercial directions and trusting the audience to follow, but thanks to his musical curiosity and willingness to stray from lad-rock’s desire lines, Kasabian’s catalogue has always had plenty of moments capable of raising an eyebrow. The first is a generic MOR phone-torch-waver, the third an electronic burble with a cursory verse, while the second spends its last couple of minutes doing the laziest thing a track supposedly about space can do – emulating the sound of early-70s Pink Floyd, right down to the Nick Mason-style rolls around the drum kit. Of the new album, Kasabian’s seventh, he adds: “One thing about this record I feel over the other ones, is it definitely feels like a body of work that belongs together. Reviewing the album for The Guardian, Michael Hann felt that the album "goes for broke" and "teems with ideas that don't always land", and despite Pizzorno's "imagination elevat[ing] them above their lad-rock leanings", as a vocalist he is "adequate but unremarkable". This is continuity Kasabian, with super-producer Fraser T Smith brought in to buff up their rave-rock sound.Rocket Fuel rolls in like the Prodigy, Pizzorno declaiming over a Middle Eastern-style riff, with a bassy thud that hits in the chest, resolving into a soaring refrain. Kasabian have always been about having a good fucking time, and although this is understandably their most introspective record yet, it does point to euphoria ahead. Because, yes, there is a concept of sorts at the heart of this album, with a Serge-like mystic travelling through the record on a voyage of self-discovery.

It is Kasabian's first album in five years, following For Crying Out Loud (2017), and first to feature Serge Pizzorno as a sole lead vocalist after former frontman Tom Meighan was fired in 2020 amid his domestic assault conviction.Pizzorno went on to explain that he saw a parallel in the “out of body experience” that Kasabian have weathered since ejecting their frontman Tom Meighan, who left the Leicester band in 2020 after assaulting his partner Vikki Ager. Couple of good tracks on there that would feature well on other Kasabian albums, but it’s just not the same without Tom.