Kasabian

Kasabian arrived on the scene, full of swagger and stadium-filling aspirations and have managed to realise most of them in under a decade. They've done it by keeping alive the dying corpse of Britpop in a way that occasionally produces something rather good. Most of the time, however, it results in something which is so blindingly obvious. And Velociraptor! is, in that sense, more of the same. The band do appear to be mellowing on their fourth album though, with less of the big beats of old and more of the comfortable guitar songs that will always garner the Oasis. There is still that little bit of weirdness that makes Kasabian more interesting than most of their competition, such as the frankly bizarre cover to the Middle Eastern influence that sneaks into a few songs. But there's really nothing new here - it isn't a bad album, but not a good one either which will please fans and pass by everyone else unnoticed.