Riding on the new wave of indie bands, The Kaiser Chiefs couldn't have released their first album, Employment, at any better of a time. It mixed the traditional indie sound with catchy keyboard riffs and suited the current musical climate perfectly, sky rocketing them to success. Two years later they're back with their all important second album, The Angry Mob...
Thanks to Virgin you would have to of had your head down a whole to not have heard the opener Ruby. With its rampantly catchy chorus it makes an ideal single but also work well as a means of introducing the Kaisers more mature sound. Instrumentally the song is good; the guitars carry the melody well along with the trademark keyboards. A mention here should go Simon Rix whose bass melody in the verses underpins the whole song along with the drums.
Next is "The Angry Mob" which sounds as they it could be a sequel to "I predict a Riot". Sadly though, while the song is listenable, upon closer listening it comes clear that sounds almost like the previous song just in minor chords. And sadly this is the theme for most the album, while it does have its nice catchy tunes and enjoyable vocal melody it just sounds the same. The lyrics are all average, nothing inspiring or clever, just simple storylines that happen to work well to then tune they've been put to. Furthermore the same applies to the instrumental side of things, it’s nice, but it's not fantastic. All the band members do their job well but after a couple of listens, or maybe just half way through one, it soon becomes obvious that it all sounds the same.
It's hard to describe however, because the songs are all easy to listen to you become victim of the mind numbingly catchy choruses and don't realise till after the album that you can't remember any of the tracks and might as well have been listening to the same album. In conclusion, this isn't a bad album, the music is nice enough and it's a good one to play while reading because you'll be unaware that this song was as same as the last two, but if you want decent listening material, get Employment, it's worth it.
2/5
