For Crying Out Loud (2017) [Vinyl LP]

The hotly anticipated sixth studio long-player from the chart-topping Leicester quartet, For Crying Out Loud delivers the usual Kasabian goods -- a truly awful album cover, nostalgia, escapism, good-natured hedonism, and more than a few festival-ready indie rock bangers with pint-smashing choruses. Any enjoyment derived from the band's particular brand of musical populism -- Oasis wanted to be the Beatles and Kasabian wanted to be Oasis -- depends largely on the listener's love for the overall brand. For Crying Out Loud certainly doesn't disappoint on that front, deploying a well-paced set of bro-ish, politically incorrect stadium jams that employ just enough swatches of sonic modernity to appeal to the indie/electropop crowd. Standouts like the swaggering opener "Ill Ray (The King)," its equally snide sibling and lead single "You're in Love with a Psycho," the rousing "Bless This Acid House," and the unapologetically Fab Four-inspired closer "Put Your Life on It" stick their landings because they never skimp on the fun. Simply put, For Crying Out Loud works because the band knows exactly what its listeners want. ~ James Christopher Monger