Kasabian – Call Review

Bring out the dead of mid-2000s alternative rock. While it may live on as it is pumped through club speakers, (tinnier the better, naturally) the likes of Kasabian rest on their nostalgia bait. Nobody will play Algorithms three years from now and if it were possible, the master tapes of Call would be set fire to. Ideally, such a flame would put an end to their latest releases. Kasabian has been a one-song showcase for some time but for those who grew up on the music of their youth and assume festivals are for stomping and clapping after having avoided ruining your Stone Island jumper in the mud, it marks a revolution. A whimpering cry is the best Kasabian can get to at this stage and for those who were waiting around, leaping on to say “we told you so,” now is not the time. It may sound like stereotypes at play, but the lifeless new-wave embarrassment of Call is no different to Club Foot. 

As the band dips their toes into the trance-like waters of vocable interjections and an electronic fitting better suited for Magaluf crowds, Kasabian certainly knows where their audience is. Thankfully over before you know it, but Call remains on the mind as an embarrassing and impersonal disaster. Serge Pizzorno and company remain vacant. Distant from any claim to originality as they thump through preset-sounding instrumentals and another litter of primitive lyrics providing a scummy back-and-forth of romantic decadence. Flatlining meets irritating yet it may be the track Kasabian puts all their faith in as Gerry Cinnamon has managed to grift those with hands to clap and feet to stomp for years. Call will do much the same yet its lack of danceability, the shock absence of anything to feel or move with.  

Kasabian has figured their listeners can do the heavy lifting and provide relatable instances of their own. Yet while Pizzorno writes with the broad nature of non-specifics he also places his listeners into places where only a few will connect with his numb lyrical turn. Dense and impenetrable club filler for the polo shirt crowd. Its lyrical absence is personified by the vacant performance from Pizzorno, whose flatlining vocal turn is one for the entrenched fans and not those who hope for a flicker of personality or range in frontman performances. A song where Pizzorno will fist pump the air and jump in the same spot as those who attend their gigs do the same, an unretentive and dull cult at work.  

Gurn your face, let out a little laugh and move on. It is all to be done with Call which is hopeful of simple rhymes as a base for its beat. Crude work at best from Kasabian means they have a song which can freely be adapted into a Championship-level football chant but not much else. When your song has nothing of particular interest in its lyrics listeners will naturally turn to the instrumentals, which here sounds like a washed-up children’s entertainer opening a fresher’s event in Sunderland. Rudimentary rock music with an angle for sounding safe. Even then their risk-free attempts at dance-like tracks fall flat and in turn spark another liberating worry over the state of upcoming album, Happenings.