September 19, 2007

Kasabian

Fast Fuse

Photo Gallery: Kasabian

The Enemy? Two pint pushovers. The Twang? Crappy Mondays! The Pigeon Detectives?! You’re having a fookin’ laugh, aintcha? These, you suspect, are the diary entries of Thomas Meighan, age 26 and two-thirds, as he surveys the opposition from his Rutland Water bunker. He’s got a point. YouTube may be swamped with gun totin’ hoodie-hoodlums and the
news full of a nightly orgy of terrifying teen-on-teen violence – at least for readers of the Daily Mail – but in the Asbo turf wars, Kasabian still reign supreme. OK, so Tom’s stage-chat may have lapsed into a syntax-mangling formula after years on the road and they’ve still not written a ballad, but their refusal to do the obvious remains, well, empire.

None of which prepares you for ‘Fast Fuse’, which explodes like The Shadows on ketamine playing the wrap-party for Tarantino’s Death Proof. If you thought ‘Brianstorm’ was wired, wait till you hear this. “I was born on a fast fuse/No time to love/Just a city to amuse!” gasps Tom, at the exact mid-point between encore and limo. Christ – it’s good. Not Kaisers-at-Leeds-gig good, but shiver-down-the-spine, ‘Club Foot’ on crystal meth good. “I’m the reason you came!” he screams, as a champagne supernova of Krautrock bass, Pretty Things harmonies and Stooges-esque strumming builds to a frenzy. Who else could sound this vital, this urgent, this desperate to get their message over?
And get this – it’s only available as a one-sided 10-inch, available through the website. Let the careerists do the corporate waltz to V Festival hell, so ‘Fast Fuse’ seems to be saying. Kasabian won’t go that way without a fight. More use to rock than a sniper trained on Mark Ronson’s forehead.

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