Kasabian — Kasabian

For a gang of dope-smoking townies from a pastoral backwater farming town, Leicester, U.K.’s Kasabian do paranoia and inner-city tension awfully well. The dense, narcotic end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it narratives of their self-titled debut are populated with a full complement of riot cops, black helicopters and firebomb-tossing youth striking iconic poses. Singer Tom Meighan stretches out his syllables and slurs his phrases like Richard Ashcroft after a stiff glass of kykeon, especially on the head-noddin’, hip-shimmin’ "L.S.F. (Lost Souls Forever)." Meighan is the perfect frontman — he’s part rock god, part cultural freedom-fighter, part lysergic soothsayer. His band are no slouches either, coating Meighan’s vocals in a thick varnish of dirty guitars cribbed from Primal Scream's XTRMNTR, slinky keyboard fills and boatloads of danceable Madchester boogie.

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