Review:

on 2011-10-14 CharlesMartel Said:

The Kaiser Chiefs are part of a wave of British indie bands who have been nurtured and moulded by the mainstream and put out in an effort to ensure that any kid who veers away from the mainstream pap of the X-Factor or the wailing divas who comprise the ranks of so-called RnB acts, will drift to a type of indie music which is still radio friendly and will bring money to the record companies and the A&R men. I can rattle off half a dozen names of similar bands without even thinking hard about it  White Lies, Snow Patrol, Kasabian, Keane, Franz Ferdinand, the Enemy  but it is too depressing even to think about it.

"Yours Truly Angry Mob" is the Kaiser Chiefs' second album. Their first garnered them some good critical reviews, but offered nothing new. For their second effort the band have gone even further down the path of bland mediocrity than on their first album. The album opens with the intensely irritating single, "Ruby", a song which makes you want to take the eponymous girl aside and throttle her with piano wire. From then on, it just all goes downhill. This is, quite simply, thirteen awful songs on an awful album by an awful band.

One of the songs is entitled "Everything Is Average Nowadays" and the Kaiser Chiefs even fail to make that standard. Any life that the band had in them for their first album has been beaten out of them in an attempt to mould them into being the same as the Arctic Monkeys. The result is an album which is passionless, flat and without any of the ingenuity and spark which a decent indie album should possess. There are too many na-na-nahs and woo-hoo-hoos to make it credible, and too little decent music to make it bearable. Bad haircuts and tight jeans do not make you edgy urban yoofs - they make you look like a bunch of dickheads.

A lot of these albums came out during the last decade as record companies cashed in. If you put them all together you would be hard put to find enough decent songs on the lot of them to make a single reasonable album. Most of these albums have pitifully few redeeming features. "Yours Truly Angry Mob" is truly special in that regard for it has absolutely none. If I never hear a chord from this album again until the end of time it will be too soon.
Rating: 1/10

Review:

on 2007-03-01 paperslut Said:

I can't get the words Ruby, Ruby, Ruby and Rubay out of my head. Though somehow, I'm not altogether convinced that I want to.

The Chiefs are back in their sophomore attempt. Of course the weight of expectation wouldn't be too high? I mean, it's not like Employment had like eight singles or anything. And it's not like I went through the last five months humming "Na Na Na Na Naa". Okay, I did. So basically, KC has a lot to live up to.

YT,AM is not as catchy as Employment. Maybe it's the Kaiser fatigue, maybe it's too much Maximo Park. Maybe the songs just aren't that catchy. Which is not to say that have too. "We are the angry mob, we read the papers everyday" is every bit as stadium as "I predict a riot"; but somewhere along the line Ricky Wilson forgot to reinvent his band. It's something that's going to catch a lot of bands out this year if they're not careful (Arctic Monkeys, Wolfmother, er... Maximo Park).

Where Ricky and co. have shown some skill is in reliving the instrumental chorus excitement of Employment. Songs like Heat Dies Down and High Royds are flowing with sticky hooks and sing-along choruses. And somewhere in the middle they throw in a gem in the form of Love's Not A Competition (But I'm Winning); Wilson's softer side isn't exactly "soft", but it's good enough to save the album from being boring.

Sure YT,AM's going to sell tonnes of records for the Chiefs, but if they want to fill up the arenas, they better start thinking bigger on their next outing.

Rating: 8/10