Last week, Radio 4's Front Row applied itself to the thorny question of what label to slap on the current crop of young British guitar bands, among them Leeds quintet the Kaiser Chiefs. Listening to their shamelessly pleasurable debut album, only one tag seems appropriate, however shopworn it may be: Britpop.
There's not much point in denying the similarities to Blur's Parklife: the producer (Stephen Street); the influences (XTC, Wire, the Jam), the comical Little Englander comments in interviews ("We just got fed up of all these dreadful bands coming over from abroad"); and the wry celebrations of the everyday ("Hold tight to your Red Stripe"). The only thing missing is a Phil Daniels cameo.
Most importantly, it is giddy with good tunes. Every song here is hummable after one listen and wedged in the brain after two. That Employment is derivative is both undeniable and irrelevant. It is so confident, so smart, so full of life, that a more enjoyable 45 minutes is hard to imagine.
