Kaiser Chiefs - Listen To Your Head

The new Kaiser Chiefs' single is a bit of a revelation. Firstly, it's really rather good. And secondly, it sounds almost nothing like the Kaiser Chiefs of old. Cutting off all the loose, fatty excess that so marred commercial disaster The Future Is Medieval, Listen To Your Head transforms the band into something far sleeker, infinitely more mature and affected with a quality that even in their enthusiasm and energy of their first two LPs, they never really possessed.

With the slick Hollywood thriller style video in two, all guns and flash cars, Listen To Your Head feels like a band revitalised, kicking their recording career back into touch when it was on the verge of dropping off into disaster and apathy all together. If there's any element of the old Kaisers that does remain, its their knack for a properly anthemic, sing-along chorus - but here it looses the boozed-up chant-along vibe of Ruby and bolts it onto a lush, atmospheric guitar outro. Oh, and those glitchy, icy electronics that flicker over the opening minute of the song are a very nice touch too. Perhaps its apt that the band's best track in ages is the one to front up their forthcoming Greatest Hits compilation - it makes for a nice transitory touch-stone, and hopefully the beginnings of more of this sort of stuff in the future.