Review Summary: A strong and underrated effort.
Kula Shaker was a Britpop band that emerged in a time when Britpop was all the rage thanks to the success of Oasis. They offered up a hit single in ‘Tattva’, which was enormously popular in England, and was a minor hit stateside as well, from their debut album ‘K’ in 1996. Despite this success, their follow up ‘Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts’ in 1998 flopped and the band imploded. Such a shame really, because this is an extremely good and underrated effort.
‘Peasants…’ is, at its essence, a psychedelic rock record with a dab of middle eastern and east Indian influences peppered throughout. Just about every song sounds like it was written in the 1960s and 70s, and it features plenty of crazy drug induced sound clips to accentuate the point of the song, on top of a ton of guitar effects. You’ll hear apocalyptic radio announcements, thunder storms, lots of hand clapping, laser beams, and even Elvis Presley himself. The album itself flows so well, you’d swear this was a concept album.
The songs themselves are very well written and lean towards more of a progressive edge, although I can’t apply that label to all the songs on the album, for the most part the songs take their time to build up to what they want to be. I know some may be put off with some of the Indian horns and sitars prominent in the tracks, but over time, you grow to get used to them, and it’s difficult to imagine the songs without them.
Opener 'The Great Hosannah' is a fantastic way to kick things off. It starts off with some scary noises and what sounds like radio transmissions, before going into a 1960s style jam, complete with that 60s organ playing in the background, something that's fairly prominent on the album. The chorus itself has backing vocals from female gospel singers. It all blends beautifully and works wonders.
‘Mystical Machine Gun’ was a single and is one of the finest tracks here. It’s a straight up rocker that really takes it’s time to build up to its rocking chorus. In between, you’re provided to drum loops and east Indian strings, along with Crispian Mills classic sounding vocals. It all builds to a cathartic climax; a wall of sound, with an announcer pleading for “everyone to stay calm!”, and to cap off the insanity, there's a bagpipe solo at the end!
One of the puts offs of this album is that sometimes the east Indian elements don’t blend at all with the songs, and completely overwhelm them. There’s a song on the album, ‘Radhe Radhe’, which sounds like it came straight from a Bollywood movie. If you enjoy this particular kind of music you might enjoy this song… for me, it breaks the flow of the album and while not completely out of place, it does stand out like a sore thumb.
The band once described this album as their “kitchen sink” album, and that’s a very apt description. Everything is thrown in here, and not just effects and instrument wise, but song wise as well. You get classic rock (‘Sound of Drums’), shimmering guitar pop (‘Shower Your Love’), theatrical and dramatic Indian music (the beautiful closer, ‘Namami Nanda Nandana’), and just straight, no frills guitar rock (‘Golden Avatar’). Some may say it sounds bloated and overdone, but to me, it just gives the listener something new to discover every time one listens to the album.
Above all, it’s just a great album. Anyone who digs on classic rock, indie rock, Britpop should do themselves a favor and gives this one a whirl. The Beatles would be proud of this one!
