Kasabian - Goodbye Kiss

Kasabian's previous single Re-Wired felt like a miss-step. For all that it played to the band's traditional formula, it lacked the pizazz and sheer 'Bang!' of their so far unsullied back-catalogue of fantastic singles. Kasabian were a band that built their career on consistency and never-relenting pace - their albums characterised by heady concoctions of energy and cocky swagger.

So for Goodbye Kiss, the third single to be taken from Velociraptor! they turn away from their usual path to embrace an Echo & The Bunnymen kind of pensive broodiness. But where those 80s greats had the songwriting chops and peerless command of great melodies to make such stuff work, here Kasabian just sound spent.

We buy into Kasabian for blinding big beat electronica-laced psychedelic-rock, not mellow acoustic ballads like this. If your girlfriend happens to be a Kasabian fan and you fancied some tuneful mood-music to set the tone for a romantic evening, Goodbye Kiss would be perfect - but then, that's not the majority of us.

It's a shame, because in Kasabian, we have one of the last great bands from the 2004 outburst of British rock - where all others have already begun to lose steam, they remained ploughing along at full-speed. But in the likes of Goodbye Kiss, even their time at the top seems numbered.

Goodbye Kiss is released on the 20th February.