Kaiser Chiefs – Off With Their Heads – review

Artist: Kaiser Chiefs

Title: Off With Their Heads

Label: Motown

Rating: 7/10

Corporate line:
Off With Their Heads could/should be described as being the first ‘proper’ Kaiser Chiefs’ album with a solid base on which is constructed a series of tracks which come together as an altogether less frenetic and more cohesive piece of work than previous outings and is almost certainly the better for it. The album was produced by Mark Ronson and Eliot James at RAK and Eastcote Studios in London in the Spring of 2008 and mixed by Andy Wallace (Nirvana, LCD Soundsystem, Run DMC) at Soundtrack Studios, Includes the single ‘Never Miss A Beat’.

The good:
“Never Miss A Beat” – This is the kind of brilliant pop single that the boys can produce without trying hard. One of their best tracks to date.

“Like It Too Much” – A hypnotic song that has a Blur flavor–during their epic days of big songs that sounded bigger than they were.

“Good Days Bad Days” – A happy-go-lucky single. Isn’t a classic however its one you’ll be singing-a-long to.

The rest:
“Spanish Metal” – The opener is mostly uninspiring and out of the Kaiser’s safe zone.

Finally:
The Kaiser Chiefs are never boring–that’s for sure. “Off With Their Heads” won’t go down as the Kaiser’s best to-date. Then again, Blur had a handful of albums that weren’t their best and yet after years became the sort of album you still craved for reminiscing. “Off With Their Heads” may do the same for the Kaiser Chiefs.

Watch the video for “Spanish Metal”