Empire is a thoroughly solid album. The dissonant, melancholic melodies so typical of British rock run throughout the record, but this does not render it the demoralizing, self-loathing sound known to characterize no small portion of music from Great Britain. Instead, catchy, fun beats and vocals bring the album towards that bizarre mix of introspective, depressing tunes that you can conceive of dancing to០feat that can only occur in a country chalk full of seasonally depressed people who treat pills like they’re Tic-Tacs. And on the topic of drug use, though I hate making comparisons to other bands, there are no fewer than 3 songs where you could swear to baby jebus that some reincarnation of now-decrepit Happy Mondays is the cause of the noise bumping out of the speakers. But it’s not Kasabian, and their third album is well worth the purchase.