Kasabian’s “surprise” performance at Glastonbury was Worthy Farm’s worst-kept secret this side of Chris Martin breaking out the confetti machine at the end of Coldplay’s set. What was arguably more striking was the sheer glee with which the Leicester rockers were received by a heaving tent crying out for old-school, hands-in-the-air rock.
There’s lots more where that came from on the group’s enjoyably giddy eighth studio album, Happenings – their second since they sacked frontman Tom Meighan after he was found guilty of assaulting his fiancé in 2020. The band had already laid to rest fears that Kasabian minus Meighan would be like a Liam Gallagher-free Oasis with 2022’s The Alchemist’s Euphoria, which marked songwriter Serge Pizzorno’s debut as a full-time lead vocalist. He’s back at the mic once again on a grippingly groovy follow-up that pinches ideas from all over the place and rustles up a brisk 28 minutes of exhilarating escapism.
The album springs from the traps with “Darkest Lullaby”, which splices rollicking riffs and jubilant vocals from Pizzorno and argues that nuance is the enemy of good art. Kasabian then swerve in another direction entirely with “Call”, which sounds like Nine Inch Nails trapped in a lift with Kaiser Chiefs – a crossing of the streams that, on paper, should be a disaster but that Pizzorno and the gang pull off through sheer eye-on-stalks gusto.
Kasabian were derided early in their career for their enthusiastic mashing together of lad rock and rave culture. However, they’ve never stopped believing in the unifying power of terrace anthem bangers, and Pizzorno has stated that Happenings was written explicitly to be belted out to huge audiences in festival fields (they play a massive open-air home town show on Saturday).
There’s plenty to sing along to, and they go full stadium disco on “Coming Back to Me Good”, which filters Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” through a prism of growling Britrock guitars. The band squeeze in the odd surprise, too. A mid-point standout is “G.O.A.T.”—inspired by YouTube videos of “greatest of all time” footballer Lionel Messi – which swerves into interstellar prog, like Prodigy going Pink Floyd.
Kasabian are all about surface-level thrills, and Happenings doesn’t offer much in the way of a deeper message. The closest the project comes to a big statement is final number “Algorithms”, a cheerful rant against artificial intelligence in which Pizzorno warns against robots “believing they have a soul”. But his dystopian observation is merely an excuse for an epic “ooh-woah-ooh” singalong as Kasabian punch in with one more feelgood moment at the end of a record stuffed with them.
Stream: “Coming Back to Me Good”, “G.O.A.T.”