KASABIAN By Safe Dancefloor Numbers On New Disappointing New Album ‘ACT III’
7 September 2026
British bigshots KASABIAN, fronted by bt their singer-songwriter Serge Pizzorno, one of the best bands of the past 25 years on record and on stage, in my book, have their new album ACT III, their 8th one.
TUTV: Mixed reviews for ACT III, from delighted ones to rejecting ones.
Since frontman Tom Meighan was fired in 2020, the band (read: Pizzorno) slid slowly
into a more synth-abundant, dance-pop-oriented direction with the 2 two LPs. Okay,
no problem, but the execution gets less challenging after hitting the UK’s Album Charts
with all their previous longplayers. Pizzorno plays it (too) save here.
ACT III sounds as if he put all of his ideas in the record’s big dancefloor banger Hippie Shaker and then ripped off that song to write many of the other tracks, but all of them inferior to that centrepiece. Too inferior for Pizzorno‘s diverse, masterly songwriting
skills.
The tunes miss the body, driving twists and turns, the anthemic electronics/rock
mix and Meighan‘s straightforward, trickless and in-your-face vocality.
Mind you, this album is not a full stinker, but I miss
their full-hearted, afire and multipotent explosiveness.
– SUPERPOWERS –
– HIPPIE SUNSHINE –
– THE GREAT PRETENDER –
ALBUM
