ACL Fest Friday Reviews

Kaiser Chiefs

In both love and music, anticipation plus expectation often begets disappointment. Not in the case of Kaiser Chiefs. The UK quintet's sequel to 2005's Employment serves up more slice-of-life Britpop populated with the perfect mix of universal longing and verisimilitude-granting regionalism. The Chiefs write what they know and draw up favorable comparisons to forebears like Ray Davies and Paul Weller in doing so. Angry Mob leads off with "Ruby," an enjoyable ode to desperate romance that made a moderate radio splash this spring, but the album's choicest cuts come later. Following the playfully menacing coda of the title track, "Heat Dies Down" offers a bracingly honest portrayal of a young man's fear of settlement set against clever wordplay and a motorway beat. "Highroyds" is a random dispatch from the land of late adolescent futility, where underage girls use their feminine wiles to gain entry to nightclubs while their male counterparts stand outside in the snow. The album ends with "Retirement," in which singer Ricky Wilson half-seriously and half-mockingly aspires to leave a mark in the workaday world. No matter what side of the pond you're on, the Chiefs' tragicomic power-pop packs quite a wallop. (7:30pm, AT&T Blue Room stage)