Off With Their Heads

Mostly band and producer Mark Ronson have done what both parties needed to do in late 2008: avoid the ordinary and obvious, namely glossy stadium-indie and retro-soul horns respectively, and aim for the extraordinary.

This is regal, majestic pop music played with a roundheaded bluntness. Off with their heads indeed.

Off With Their Heads is great British pop in the dynamic lethal-irony tradition of the mid-Sixties Kinks, the early Jam and, with that vintage-New Wave tone of Nick Baines' keyboards, XTC's 1979 album, "Drums and Wires."

Off With Their Heads is, thankfully, a subtler, cannier beast, even if it does suffer from some of the same problems as its predecessor.

It's not all great--'You Want History' can't overcome rhyming "mystery" with "history" or its leaden coda, for example--but it is at least as good as their debut, if not just a tick better for its relative dynamic and tonal variety.

This is easily some of the Kaisers' finest--and most consistent-- music.

Both anxious and anthemic, the third most famous band from Leeds, England (behind Gang of Four and the Mekons) lobs social commentary as sharp as drummer Nick Hodgson’s ties, and tackles subjects as brainy as evolutionary biology ('Like It Too Much,'), the tenets of self-help ('Tomato In the Rain') and gender politics ('Remember You’re A Girl'), all at breakneck speed.

Beyond a couple of guest-vocal spots from fellow Ronson client Lily Allen and an out-of-place rap from English MC Sway, Off with Their Heads covers pretty much the same territory as the Chiefs' first two discs.

Singer Ricky Wilson holds it together with his charismatic personality, demanding you sit up and listen the second he opens his mouth to kick things off. [Dec 2008, p.146]

The hurtling, new wave keyboard rush of 'Never Miss a Beat,' the pop-radio swirl of 'Like It Too Much,' and the casually brilliant bass-bounce of 'Good Days Bad Days' prove the band still has more than enough hooks, and brash charm, to get it through even the longest of songwriting winters.