Debut will lead to future 'Employment'

Surfing the new wave of New Wave -- think: Franz Ferdinand and the Killers -- comes Leeds, England-based band the Kaiser Chiefs (named after the South African football club). Cribbing off rock luminaries from the '60s (the Kinks), '70s (the Jam and the Clash), '80s (Adam Ant ... when he still mattered) and '90s (Blur), the Chiefs do chiefly what Kasabian -- the British band whose debut I reviewed last week -- didn't. They've taken their influences and run freely with them. Melding mod, punk, post-punk and the aforementioned New Wave into a cohesive whole is no simple task, but these Leeds lads make it sound so.\nEmployment is ably jump-started with the one-two punch of "Everyday I Love You Less and Less" and the album's Clash-like lead single "I Predict a Riot" (which might well insight one, it's that damned catchy). The first of these two tracks sets forth a trend that runs rampant through the rest of the record: breakups. This motif is heard on half of Employment's 12 tracks. The best of the bunch are Kinks-esque numbers "What Did I Ever Give You?" and "Team Mate" (the former has that band's mordant wit, the latter its sentimental balladry). Though, it's "Less and Less" that really hammers the hysterical heartache home. The track's just as propulsive as anything released by the Jam, and funny as hell to boot. Lead singer Ricky Wilson hollers hilarious hooks rhyming with the song's title, i.e. "I can't believe once you and me did sex" and "It makes me sick to think of you undressed," over the group's signature surging guitar (Andrew White), bass (Simon Rix -- no, not the dude who's done gay porn, MTV VJ'ing and Paris Hilton) and drum (Nick Hodgson) smash-ups. \nPerhaps I'm biased having heard just last week that my ex-girlfriend is getting married, but few bands tackle breakup bitterness as blithely as these Brits. Then again, the content leads one to believe the dumping was deserved, what with their prickish posturing -- as mine was. On "You Can Have It All" Wilson sings, "You can never hold my hand in public;" the obnoxiousness is upped on "Born to Be a Dancer" ("I came down at your request, to touch your breasts") and peaks with the aforementioned "What Did I Ever Give You?" ("I treat you like you're see through"). If this weren't enough, some cuts are homoerotic enough to make Tyler Durden blush. This is most evident on "Saturday Night," which includes the following ("Cut through the city on a Saturday night/Watching the boys on their motorbikes/I want to be like those guys/I want to wear my clothes tight") and the Beach Boys nod, "Caroline, Yes" -- "People say now that you look like me/'Cos you are everything I want to be."\nI struggle to remember a recent debut as assured as the Kaiser Chief's Employment (perhaps the Strokes' Is This It? or Kings of Leon's Youth and Young Manhood). Therefore, it's appropriate that "I Predict a Riot" is their calling card, as they are in fact one.