Caught in the Carousel

Kula Shaker

Strangefolk
Cooking Vinyl

For good reason much has been made of the Verve’s decision to reform, but amidst that news, the return of Kula Shaker has been vastly underreported. Back together after a nearly eight year hiatus, the band’s third long player Strangefolk finds the original lineup (minus organist Jay Darlington who’s now on the Oasis payroll) sounding positively reinvigorated. In other words, this is no casual comeback—Kula Shaker flex their pop muscle here like they mean it. Known for writing hit singles in Sanskrit and speaking in interviews about the legend of King Arthur, Kula Shaker were perhaps the strangest sons of the ‘90s Britpop-era, but Strangefolk proves that they were also one of the best. “Out On The Highway” has all the pop guts that Oasis seems to have lost; “Second Sight” sounds like The Who at the top of their game and “Shadow Lands” brings to mind the dark landscapes of The Good The Bad And The Queen. Also noteworthy is “Great Dictator (Of The Free World),” a searing indictment of Mr. Bush, written from the soon to be ex-President’s dim point of view. Not content to hold his cards to his chest, singer Crispian Mills taunts, “I’m a dic, I’m a dic, I’m a dictator…” Mills, by the way, has never sounded better and he tears through Strangefolk’s fourteen tracks (the U.S. release comes with the two bonus cuts “Persephone” and “Super CB Operator”) with more charisma and personality than any frontman in recent memory. Elsewhere, there’s swirling psychedelia (“Song Of Love/Narayana”), meditative shuffles (“Fool That I Am”) and exquisite Beatle-esque ballads (“Ol’ Jack Tar”). “Every story has a beginning,” Mills sings on “Shadow Lands.” We’re lucky as hell this one hasn’t ended.

—Alex Green