well, here we are. close to three weeks after it happened, look you see, one of them "day of release" posts what used to be quite the norm here. there has been a decided lack of interesting releases and, for numerous reasons, an inability to get to HMV for this sort of things, alas. but, we are here now.
this may or may not be interesting, or of interest - it was a day of release that i had absolutely no idea if i would engage in. having not heard a single beat from the record and being somewhat dubious about how it may sound, i was steadfastly undecided on whether or not i had any interest in The S.L.P., better known as "some sort of solo project by Serge out of Kasabian".
events, time and displacement, however, placed me within a few steps of HMV on the day of release. on the off chance that this came to be due to a game of dice by the gods of vibes, i felt it best to go right ahead and buy it.
for those in a rush, yet are still reading this and for some reason didn't just go and look elsewhere for information on The S.L.P., is this record worth getting? yes. it's interesting, and for the most part sounds really, really cool. overall, it is nowhere near as Nigel Tufnel as one might have feared, and nor is it quite as indulgent as, say, that time they let all four members of Kiss do a solo record, or for that matter that thing one record label did when they felt that a Nicky Wire out of the Manics solo album was release worthy.
a sort of caveat for the above would be that any enjoyment of this record is really, really helped by the fact that you are a Kasabian fan. which, in fairness, would probably mean that you have already bought the album anyhow. oh.
more details and information? sure. that's what the rest of this shall all be, for those interested, along with my adventure in purchasing.
that's the window display in HMV for the day of release, then. as you may well have noted, no sign of Serge out of Kasabian, or The S.L.P., which had me thinking maybe i had my dates wrong. something similar happened with the most recent of Kasabian releases, For Crying Out Loud (2017), when i nearly went a week early for it.
whereas i am a Kasabian fan, and all Kasabian releases are done on autopilot, by no means are all "Kasabian related" releases afforded such status. there are some bands which are, like for instance The Who, Frankie, Stone Roses and a couple of others, but not Kasabian. mostly this is down to the fact that, as class as the music of Kasabian is, all the members of the group strike me as being either boring b@stards or unable to sing, or in the case of the lead singer, both at once.
Serge, at concerts and what have you, has gone to extreme and exceptional lengths to prove to all and sundry that whilst he is quite class and interesting, he cannot sing. the only reason, i presume, that the flat, nasal and dull singer in Kasabian is the singer in Kasabian is that he is a good mate of Serge and/or the rest of the band, and that in fairness he is a better singer than Serge. but, i fancy, so am i.
indeed, that is The S.L.P. on display in HMV. to my shame, and perhaps getting old, i glanced at the new releases and could not find it. eventually, with the limited time that i had available, i gave up, and asked a gentleman member of staff at HMV if it was indeed the case that Serge out of Kasabian had a record out today. well, better to be safe, recalling the debacle with Ian Brown's release of Ripples earlier this year, where if you didn't buy it off his website in advance you weren't going to go into a shop and be able to find it.
to make this oddly, by my standards, non non-linear, a reference to Ian Brown here invites some speculation. many took the release of Ripples (or maybe the first solo single, First World Problems) to be confirmation of the (most recent) end of The Stone Roses. is the same true here, with The S.L.P. signalling that Kasabian are no more? doubt it. one really doesn't see Serge functioning outside of a band. this probably just something of a diversion for the lad, whilst he waits for the rest of the band to "be ready". should i recall correctly, the rather dull lead singer couldn't quite handle some of the basics of the rock and roll life, and so a number of gigs (at least one) had to be "postponed" due to an unspecified thing seeming to "disagree" with him.
much, if not as point of fact all, of the album has a general Kasabian feel to it, except perhaps edging in the direction of more atmospheric, trippy funky Kasabian than the hard rock side of Kasabian. a loud and clear message from this album - whether intended or accidental - is the confirmation that Serge is very much the brains, the heart and the soul of all which make Kasabian quite smart.
based on his look and playing style you'd think you are right to assume he would be heavily influenced by the many great guitarists of the late 60s and most of the 70s. true, perhaps, but as hinted at above, the greatest influence on Serge appears to be the atmospheric creations of 70s soundtracks. listening to the record evokes the feel of key, darker westerns, of them peculiar and often violent 70s and 80s Italian gangster / crime films, and any number of obscure 70s British films, featuring the likes of Michael Caine or Oliver Reed, which are dark and brooding and usually involve the lead actor punching someone in the face.
earlier on, and more than once, i have mentioned that the biggest challenge appears to have is that he cannot really sing, and would seem incapable of selecting someone who can to work with him. the dull singer in Kasabian appears not to be a fluke or accident going on the absolute worst song here, the dull, tedious and monotonous Favourites, which features someone called Little Simz, who cannot sing either. a really, really good idea would have been to release this in an instrumental form, but there you go, done now.
am i sure that The S.L.P. is worth getting? yes. if nothing else, you have to remember that Billy Bragg hates Kasabian, probably out of some understandable jealousy due to the fact that people actually like their records. more than once he has managed to milk and interview somewhere and appear relevant simply by having a go at them. you would have to think that buying absolutely anything related to Kasabian is something that would distress Billy Bragg, so not a penny of what i paid do i begrudge.
that's the other window display at HMV. now that i look at it, and now that i know what the cover actually looks like, yes, they kind of did indeed have The S.L.P. on display, then.
i have missed out on writing anything about a couple of other 2019 releases that i managed to get. one of them is Daltrey's "orchestral" recording of Tommy, whereas the other is the Morrissey solo album that is a bunch of covers. will get to them eventually, as well as the perversity that was Noel Gallagher unexpectedly doing a decent song again in the form of Black Star Dancing, which i have the 12" picture disc of.
not entirely unrelated to the latter, by the time this is all published on this blog Liam Gallagher's 2nd solo album should also be a thing. so, yes, will be off for that one too.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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