THE fifth album in ten years by Kasabian sees the band mix more of the same with a little something different. With a mixture of brief instrumentals and heavy guitar tracks, there’s a comfortable familiarity to the majority of the album.

Early track Bumblebee is Kasabian by numbers, but no worse for it. Glass sounds like what the Beatles may have been recording if they’d made the late Seventies/early Eighties – all phased vocals, sweeping synths and strummed acoustic guitars with an electronic beat and a sneer. Elsewhere, Doomsday begins like a heavy rock Madness cover and continues that way, while new single Eez-eh is where the band might irk the purists.

It’s heavy with electronica and distant vocals, and practically a dance track, but stands out among the guitar music as something a bit daring. Not good, but different. Consisting of 13 tracks which total up to 48 minutes and 13 seconds, it’s a nice gimmick, but there’s no doubt some of the tracks last a little too long and the quality, while mainly very good, is inconsistent.