“West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum”
Kasabian
Columbia
 
While Kasabian has always been known for being self-assured rockers with strong grooves, they tone down the music in this their third album to confound critics..
 
The looping grooves that fans have come to expect from Kasabian, manifest in the track, “Underdog.” Indeed, even from the get-go, the band makes it clear that they can go soft, successfully.
 
And that is the whole point in “WRPLA”: Kasabian may have harnessed the big drum beats, yet they manage to puts the focus on the un-tempered vocals of Tom Meighan. This profundity and passion makes “WRPLA” more listenable than their previous outputs.
 
And it’s not that they’ve turned into a second-rate Coldplay either.
 
To wit: As “Fire” glows in the verse,  Meighan makes sure it completely catches, well, fire in the chorus. The Bollywood-flavored “West Ryder Silver Bullet,” meanwhile, expands into a chorus of imposing fervor.
 
Then again, “Take Aim” is thoroughly stripped back, while the imperceptibly idyllic “Thick as Thieves” is The Kinks in everything but the name. So are they saying that quiet is the new loud?
 
What is sure is that this sophisticated sound is Kasabian’s musical direction. It's the sound of past and future merging to first-class effect in the present - and could be Kasabian's major declaration that they’re in for the long haul.

Q: How does one go from being the bratty, more marketable female equivalent of Eminem, to becoming Def Jam and Jay-Z’s new persona-non-grata?
 
A: By dissing New York onstage at a gig in the city itself.
 
Lady Sovereign could have made the big-time by transcending her musical sub-genre in her breakthrough hit, “Love Me or Hate Me.”
 
But as she herself said in that song, the self-proclaimed biggest midget in the game doesn’t really give a toot to her critics (just ask Lily Allen).
 
In “Jigsaw, Lady Sovereign proves she is her own lady through music that is still deliberately lo-fi and grimy.
 
Robert Smith of The Cure reportedly hates her utilization of that synth line in “Close to Me” for her recent single “So Human”.. It’s perfectly unpleasant the way an awful, shoddy keyboard sound vandalizes the original, as she intones insipidly over the top, “Doesn’t it feel much bettah/When you’ve had a bettah day than yesterday?”
 
And isn’t that what rock music’s all about: annoying the living hell out of ye old folks?
 
“Let’s Be Mates” is as droopy. With its no-fuss electronic accompaniments yet tremendous chorus, it appears to gesticulate off its greatness.
 
“Bang-Bang” has Lady Sovereign channeling that other ‘lady’ (Lady Gaga); save in the part where instead of acting whorish, in an attempt to “reclaim her femininity,” she simply stares down the ogling losers.
 
“Won’t catch me in a dress, hands off of my b***ts… now who are you to try and rule my world now?” goes the brashness.
 
“Pennies” is Lady Sovereign’s requisite Lily Allen diss while “Food Play” is messy, a hysterically snobbish lampoon of Barry White bembang records.
 
Whatever she does, Lady Sovereign desires to suck us into her world by exalting in her underclass, underdog status. Talk about cheek.