Hush, hush, if only they would.
"I hear the sound of drums."
Yes, we can probably all recall that day we heard the drums, the church bells peeling and the bugles....doing whatever bugles do to spread the good news. Yes, Kula Shaker had split up and their Indian influence, their croaky vocals and Swastika-using artwork hold on the British youth had been vanquished, leaving the band in the same broken bargain bundle as Menswear, Fluffy and The Gyres. And before any Kula Shaker apologists start up about how the Swastika was in fact taken from Ancient times and the band was making an attempt to reclaim it, jog on and think about the lack of thought and humility that encouraged people to think that it would have been a good idea to use it in the mid 1990s in the first place.
And that was a key reason in many peoples negative opinion of the band, not their questionable choice in artwork but the sheer arrogance and contempt shown to anyone else. Thirty years on from the original summe of love, Crispian Mills genuinely felt he was turning people onto Indian mysticism and a way of communal loving when it was just a shambolic reshuffling of the pack that none of their peers at the time had fully went for. For a generation of kids who were hearing all these sounds for the first time, there was a wave of euphoria and a slight broadening of the mind but as soon as people realised that others had been down this path and had better tales to tell of it, interest in Kula Shaker waned. Hands up who recalls the second album about spacemen and pigs? Perhaps the band are hoping to cash in on the success of Spiderpig this summer, it couldnt be any worse than their thieving of George Harrison's back catalogue.
The single 'Second Sight' sounds like The Mamas And The Papas at their most drugged-up and self-indulgent but at least the band have given it a title that will allow the playground rhymers an easy target to insult the song with. That's even assuming the song will permeate into the playground, at the height of Britpop, the bands of the day were a heavy topic of discussion but that was an era before happy slapping and Coca-Cola Zero so who knows if pop acts are still discussed over games of Top Trumps or shove ha'penny (all played remotely on a DS naturally.)
"Dont want to be wrapped up in a flag" Mills rails on 'Die For Love' so we've to assume that alluding to imagery and alligning themselves to beliefs and causes was okay the first time around, when they were selling records but isnt now. Tell me Crispian, what was it about your years in the wilderness and not selling records that brought upon this change in attitude that had previously served you well but mysteriously seems to have been discarded when the money stopped rolling in from every angle.
Still, the line "I'm a dick....I'm a dick....dictator of the free world" will no doubt have many smirking at the cleverness on show, "hehe, Crispy-Ian is singing that he's a dick and some people will be saying you sure are pal but then he'll fool them all by revealing that hes a dictator and anyway, he's not singing about himself but taking on the character of someone else." Quite frankly, it's amazing and if he doesn't win an Ivor Novello for that track then it's a bigger fix than the time Pete Doherty popped around to see Amy Winehouse for a quick pick-me-up. Are we being serious in praising the lyrical output of this song? Much like Amy's response to the offer of rehab, NO, NO, NO. It's just another example that the smugness and pompous attitude that Kula Shaker wore like a badge of honour during their first foray is still around in this new decade.
It's just awful, it's changed so little from the first time around that any minute deviation from the sound seems unworthy of comment. It's so annoying to see these useless bands of that era reforming (this also means you Rick Witter, sure you'll make enough money to replace the shoes that you got mugged in but what about the Dukes? WHAT ABOUT THE DUKES?) purely because a bunch of morons are lapping up the nostalgia of the Britpop era. If the bands were being honest, they'd be introduced by Stuart Maconie who would make a cheeky quip about Two Dogs and all the other alcopops that burst onto the scene (and then later onto the bathroom floor as the underagers realised that all that alcohol shouldnt be consumed in one go) whilst Kate Thornton lies about recalling Euro 96 and watching football coming home.
Is there a need for Kula Shaker to be around? Are the people who are so keen to see them live and get new material by them so devoid of life that they haven't found anyone new worth caring about in the past decade? Yes the musical world has slipped to depths where Michelle McManus or Paul Potts (the man's name is virtually the same as one of the biggest mass murderers of all time and yet no one in the mainstream made one remark about that) can top the charts and be the main topic of conversation but thats only because its allowed to happen and allowing Kula Shaker to come back into this world isn't going to change a damn thing. "Hush Hush", we could only hope they fucking well would! As Paul Potts near-namesake would have suggested, let's make this year zero, look forward, never backwards and dont let the infadels back into power. Let's try and do it in a peaceful and democratic manner though people, don't be confusing that little outburst for a call to arms, not even Kula Shaker are worth spilling blood over.
"This Is Spinal Tap" feaured a funny scene where the band learned that their album 'Shark Sandwich' received a review in the NME which simply read "Shit Sandwich."
It's a pretty safe wager that 'Shark Sandwich' would be an album that is far more enjoyable than 'Strangefolk.' Kula Shakers sound was thirty years behind the times when they first sold records and ten years later, guess what, it's now forty years behind the times. If you're into Kula Shaker, then let's face it, you're not someone who listens to what reviewers have to say so this score won't bother you in the slightest but please, don't give these chaps the steam off your own piss, let alone any of your money.