Kasabian’s latest album ‘Happenings’ is an intriguing journey into where the band is going.
I think you have to make a conscious distinction between Kasabian the band with Tom, and Kasabian the band without Tom. Don’t get me wrong, their reasons for moving ahead without Tom are completely valid and I fully support them, but it’s hard to deny that the Kasabian of now is a very different sound to what they once were.
‘Happenings’ definitely builds on what they started in 2022. It feels tighter, like they’ve found their individual spaces in this new band arrangement, while the overall sound is considerably more pop. There’s still flashes of those rocky undertones that defined Kasabian back in the day on tracks such as ‘Hell of It’, but they soon give way to a lighter, more dance driven beat more akin to bands such as Coldplay and Everything Everything. Those deep riffs you could feel in your gut are no longer the driving force of this band’s music.
Individually, most tracks are enjoyable and Serge as a frontman definitely feels more comfortable this time around as there now seems to be a conscious effort to work the band’s sound to fit his voice. Songs like ‘Italian Horror’ and ‘Coming Back to Me Good’ demonstrate this well, and the more pared back approach on tracks such as ‘Passengers’ is something I’d like to hear more of.
For me, the album still lacks cohesion. There’s still quite an amalgamation of sounds here, as if they’re “trying stuff out” and it doesn’t all quite fit together yet. But then, if we’re defining the Kasabian of now as a “new band”, that’s a trap most sophomore albums fall into far too easily, as they retain the desire of wanting to stick with what works on the first album with a inquisitiveness of trying something new. Layer into this the trappings of the past Kasabian and you can see how we got to this point.
Overall the growth from their last album is palpable and while Happenings is not perfect it is good to see the band trying more consciously to head in a new direction.