Kula Shaker: Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts: Pitchfork Review

Kula Shaker
Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts
[Columbia]
Rating: 5.1

About four months ago, I reviewed the new Kula Shaker album. In case you didn't know, American labels don't like to put British albums on the shelf until the entire U.S. fanbase becomes totally pissed off and just buys the import. Then, the American release doesn't do as well as projected and the band gets dropped and moves to another U.S. label, where the honchos decide to shelve the band's next album because the last album didn't move a billion units. Repeat.

At any rate, Kula Shaker's sophomore album has finally been released in America, a country that should appreciate the band's music more. Over the span of these last four months, I've repeatedly gone back to Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts and found my enjoyment of the album steadily growing. Here are some possible explainations for my change in opinion:

I first reviewed the album while waiting to depart on a flight to Italy. For obvious reasons, I was pretty excited. In my state of hyper- anxiousness, the smallest flaw in Kula Shaker's music brought out my bubbling impatience.

In the four months that have passed, few really great albums have been released. In fact, we've been flooded with piles of shockingly mediocre music. This is the "Sliding Curve" postulate.

If any genre has irritated me to no end in recent years, it's been retro pop. The extreme glut of '60s- style bubblegum is terribly uncreative. With every Elf Power CD that comes out, poorly retreading '60s pop maneuvers, Kula Shaker sounds just a little bit better. For one thing, Kula Shaker can actually play their instruments. And having the benefit of Pink Floyd producer Bob Ezrin's years of experience doesn't hurt, either. This is the "Sliding Curve, subarticle 1a: The Elephant Six postulate.

It grows on you.

I've stopped being a pretentious prick. (Remember, these are just hypotheses.)

I always root for the underdog.

Guilty Pleasure '99.

I work with an aging fellow who trades Allman Brothers bootlegs and dreams (or is that "has flashbacks") of Pink Floyd concerts. For many people, Kula Shaker is the last great hippie arena band of the Millennium. These people need their new music, too.

For whatever reason, this album gets some occasional spins at home. I just don't own any old- school rock albums. We all get a hankerin' for that stuff sometimes. It might seem unfair or hypocritical to some for me to re-review an album. But honestly, there are countless times when we critics wish we could go back and rethink our reviews after letting the album really sink in. You know Alternative Press is going to wake up four months from now and ask, "Why the hell did we give the new Cranberries and Smash Mouth records 4 out of 5?" That's just the way music criticism works. So, there, Crispian, I've apologized. Can you write some better lyrics now?

And now, the old review:

Oh, so it wasn't an act? I suppose we have George Harrison and illicit pharmaceuticals to blame for all this. Way back in 1964, the Beatles threw some sitar on "Norwegian Wood" after George Harrison "dicovered" the indigenous music of India, a culture ancient and exploited by the Beatles' homeland. But at least that song was about trying to shag some bird in her parents house, originally titled "Normally She Would." Then the Beatles fiddled some more with tablas and sitar on Revolver. Honky hippies have been fiddling with Indian rhythms and instruments ever since.

Kula Shaker remind us they're still around with their new album, Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts. As one can tell by the Jethro Tull-ishness of the title, this is a laughably bombastic album of '70s proportions. My promo copy was bare, but I'll bet good money that the cover sports a quasi- psychedelic image reminiscent of bad Uriah Heep artwork. Remember, this is the band whose last EP featured a knight riding a motorcycle for its cover art.

Sure, the band's not all bad-- they are, after all, capable of producing one good single per year. "Tattva" and "Hush" were fun, and here, "Sound of Drums" seems like the sole keeper. It's the most direct pop song on the record, complete with a Ray Manzarek-ish organ hook. But only someone Madonna- deep into riding the trend of insipid mimicing of Eastern Culture would find any pleasure in an entire LP of this neo-Hindu arena wank.

On top of all this, the album sports some of the most predictible lyrics since Ace Frehley's "Ozone." You've got the standard fare-- love, peace, unity, heaven, flowers, oceans, and assorted Krishna mantras are in verbal surplus. But Kula Shaker are at their most ridiculous on "Mystical Machine Gun" when they force us to believe that the whole thing must be a joke. Sadly, it doesn't appear to be. Not even blacklights and thick hotboxing could raise interest in these guys' psychedelic rehash. I mean, even when the band attempts to strip down to a simple acoustic ballad, it comes across as pure Kansas.

Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts, seemingly marketed at men with bald spots and ponytails who work in head shops, offers the artistic equivalent of velvet unicorn paintings. I suspect that our man Crispian Mills, the main Kula mover and shaker, will be passing out pamphlets and beating on a tambourine in the LAX baggage claim in the near future.

-Brent DiCrescenzo