3 out of 5

Label: Harvest

Produced by: Sergio Pizzorno

Kasabian sold a lot of albums but also decided to go the “we’re better than Oasis” route and so suffered some criticism for that.  Rightfully so, as their lyrics and compositions never quite reached the level of a Blur or Oasis – neither band which I’d claim to be the almighty, but they deliver with conviction and gave you a sense of personality behind the music, whereas Kasabian just sorta comes across as a front at times.  But they maintained the swagger past their debut, past their sophomore album, and have continued on to album #5, keeping the same baiting sneer in place and settling into their style of dance-floor, listen-with-acid pop music.  Which is fine.  Which has worked, and that big beat sensibility is what captured me on the first disc and has kept me coming back for more; those Oasis claims almost seem like part of a particularly cultivated attitude that’s well-suited to dancey jams, so they’ve never felt like a snubbing barrier to entry.  Rather, it becomes appealing in its own way: you can assume that Kasabian will show up again with its collar popped and a new set of tunes, no tumultuous back-story bickering or trips to Africa to embellish some unnecessary narrative.

They’re fun, ya dig?

…But that’s not to deny that they’ve worked hard to add to their sound where they can, and for better or worse, it’s resulted in albums of great tracks but nothing that really captures the non-stop momentum of their debut.  48:13 follows that trend, starting out wonderfully big and bold – after the instrumental ‘Shiva’ lead-in, ‘Bumblebeee’ attacks your speakers, moving on to the shuffle of ‘Stevie,’ and ‘Doomsday’ – with those latter tracks introducing the concept which somewhat drags 48:13 down to an average listen: breaking past the 3-minute single barrier to let the songs float on just on beats, and very electronic beats at that.  Live percussion feels like it only makes a rare appearance on the album, and where it does, Pizzorno’s (main song composer for the group) production somewhat flatlines everything.  Whereas previous discs often reached for the back seats (which is what Bumblebeee does), the focus here seems to be more on letting the people in the front row sweat it out in a groove.  This isn’t exactly a bad thing – 48:13 is constantly on the move – but it does allow the group to try out some more contemplative moments (‘Glass’), which unfortunately let the focus fall on Pizzorno’s rather basic lyrics.  The flip-side to this is something like ‘Explodes,’ which excitingly builds from a quiet stuttering electro drums to an appropriate explosion of marching beats and effects – this kind of transition doesn’t always have its place in the big and bold Kasabian moments, and it’s a fun blend of both sides of the group.

So nothing exactly new on 48:13, but certainly nothing disappointing, and with enough awesome rave-ups scattered throughout the disc to prevent you from falling into toe-tapping malaise.  There’s also the sense that with sharper production, these tracks could’ve been whipped up into something mighty, so if Pizzorno is permanently taking the reigns, it’ll be cool to see if he can build on the work down here for the (hopefully) next album.