Rarely has the bromance between laddish rock music and football been stronger than last summer when Kasabian performed a pair of homecoming shows at Leicester City Football Club’s stadium to celebrate the team’s miraculous Premier League win. For a band of lifelong Leicester fans given to writing songs (such as Underdog) that sound apt to roar on the terraces, the occasion must have felt as sweet as it was unlikely.
No surprise then that Kasabian’s sixth album lists ex-Leicester City boss Claudio Ranieri among its influences – even if For Crying Out Loud ultimately proved longer in the making than the Italian’s tenure lasted at the club. If you’re curious as to what an album inspired by a spectacularly overachieving Italian football manager sounds like, the short answer is, um, a lot like most other Kasabian albums you’ve heard.
There are reams of lyrics that sound like they’ve been forked from a word soup
In opener Ill Ray (The King), there’s the mandatory lairy dance-y one reminiscent of risible early Noughties electronic duo Audio Bullys, something of a misleading start to what proves another record of assorted electro-rock’n’roll with guitars set to “having it”. There are reams of lyrics that sound like they’ve been forked from a word soup (“Like a grapefruit and a magic trick, the prodigal son”, dribbles frontman Tom Meighan during You’re in Love with a Psycho). From guitarist and songwriter Sergio Pizzorno there’s the mandatory patter describing the album as being all about “saving guitar music from the abyss”. The same abyss which the likes of Kasabian are arguably responsible for pushing guitar music into in the first place.
But it’d be churlish not to admit that For Crying Out Loud also possesses many forceful qualities, and some enjoyable production details. The eight-minute long Are You Looking for Action frames Pizzorno as a fluent dance music producer speaking the language of guitar music. However, if you seek a chorus that stirs a triumphant feeling something akin to winning the Premiership with an unfashionable provincial football club, then look no further than the air-punching Bless This Acid House.
