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.

Kaiser Chiefs - On The Run

It's hard not to make a joke about the Kaiser Chiefs being 'on the run' themselves. The sales figures from their last album The Future Is Medieval were disastrous, despite the adventurous marketing techniques the band employed, with lead single Little Shocks liming to a woeful 179 in the official charts. Oh Dear.

Eager not to repeat the three year hiatus (where mostly everyone seemed to forget about them) that preceded the record, they're gunning for a 2012 release of new LP Start The Revolution Without Me. Of course, with a title as combative as that, the band seem almost to be setting themselves up for a kind of do-or-die scenario - they've come a long way from their 2 Million-selling debut and it's easy to think this latest effort might address a band frustrated with changing times and shifting scenes.

Speaking to the Daily Star about On The Run, the first single to be taken from the new album, drummer Nick Hodgson explained: 'I’m on the run from the world really. There are too many opinions out there, like on Twitter. It’s full of rude, cruel people.'

Touted as a 'rant against modern society', the building blocks of On The Run sound on paper like the starting point for pretty much any angsty indie rocker tune. The question of course is, can the Kaiser Chiefs actually recapture the witty pop fun that made the likes of I Predict a Riot and Ruby the massive hits they were?

The Future Is Medieval showed some glimmers of hope - Starts With Nothing was a glorious New Wave styled gem. And it's down this path we like to think the band will continue, not dropping away into a sea of samey resentment like so many of their contemporaries (The Pigeon Detectives... The Automatic...) have done...

On The Run is set for a January release date.

Kaiser Chiefs - Starts With Nothing

Kaiser Chiefs remain to this date one of the bands that did best out of the immense explosion of indie acts that began in 2004. Four albums in though, and they teeter on a precipice of what to do next. Sales of their third LP Off With Their Heads were disappointing compared to previous fare.

So, in one of the most inventive moves of this year, they released a kind of pic n mix version of their new album on their website - fans could choose their own selection of tracks, creating their own unique running own.

It grabbed the attention of the music press, and it seemed to please fans - certainly, the band looked to have gone down a treat at Glastonbury.

Lead single Little Shocks (if a record released in such a manner can even have a 'lead single') didn't hold much water with me though, it felt like rather a retread of previous material. No, if there's a real gem to be found in the Kaiser's latest effort then it is Starts With Nothing.

At five and a half minutes long, it sees the band breaking out into broader, bigger, more experimental territory. Indeed, the first time I heard the track I wasn't even sure if it was the Kaiser Chiefs. But my attention was piqued though, as Starts With Nothing is actually brilliant; by far the best thing the band have put out since their debut album.

Full of sprawling 80s sounds, it touches on vast swathes of guitar and electronics to deliver something akin to Duran Duran's classic Is There Something I Should Know? - The 'yes that is my final answer' refrain is particularly Duran. In short though, the whole track is brilliant.