Kaiser Chiefs - 'Ruby' (Polydor) Released 19/02/07

Kaiser Chiefs are very much the Millwall F.C of socially-reflective British guitar bands: no-one likes them, they don’t care. And yet, in an age when Kele Okereke begins the pretentiously lame excuse that is the new Bloc Party album with the words “I am trying to be honest/In an age of modernity”, or when the supposedly coolest person in rock Beth Ditto turns up her nose at Scissor Sisters fans for the crime of having never seen a John Waters film, the Leeds riot act once described as having “actually rolled up stinking of desperation, like a junkie child actor trying to get a peas advert” suddenly seem more necessary than ever.  

‘Ruby’ is a considered, almost melancholic progression from ‘Employment’, imploring us to keep the idea of romance alive whilst nicking a Noel Gallagher-patented solo and, best of all, never forgetting the first rule of Kaiser Chiefs: that ‘catchy’ is always an understatement. Welcome the Angry Mob: pseudo-political art students beware!