Wormslayer by Kula Shaker – Album Review

By David Schuster

If I say that there’s nothing in Wormslayer that will surprise long term Kula Shaker fans, it sounds like criticism. That’s not the case. I like this album, a lot. I wish there were more like it. Rather, it’s a reflection of the fact that the band’s output has always been varied, genre spanning and, sometimes, challenging. This latest release is all of those things.

‘Lucky Number’ opens in familiar territory; the deep psychedelia of the 1960’s. It starts with spacey synthesiser, South Asian instrumentation and ambient background chatter, before exploding into an excellent rock riff. As has often been said before, Kula Shaker’s sound sits somewhere between The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper and Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s epic Tarkus, which is fine company indeed.

Track two, ‘Good Money’ also starts in the same manner, with heavily phased vocals and twanging sitar a la ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. However, the spoken background dialogue really lift this number into something modern, different and attention grabbing. The words feel like dialogue spoken by the charismatic but dangerous characters in a Guy Ritchie movie: “There’s two types of cash in the world. There’s your cash and my cash. But, your cash is also my cash. Do you understand?”. Enhanced by clever production, which gives this the slightly loose feeling of a live recording, that’s a rarity these days. It’s instantly catchy.

Kula Shaker, 2026

“Fresh and exciting”

Such is the state of world politics, that we need more protest songs, right now. A rallying cry to humanity to take a step back from the rage bait and consider the implications of our current direction of travel. ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’, the first single to be taken from Wormslayer, is just that. The message is clear in the lyrics: “It’s time to […] kill your apathy. They’re breaking the law. These masters of war.” It’s a wake up call that political conflicts often end with the needless slaughter of people like you and I, just as happened with the Charge of the Light Brigade. Spun as an iconic moment of heroism, in reality it was a military catastrophe brought about by a simple miscommunication.

Unfortunately, that passion doesn’t follow through into the tune. It’s straight up soft-rock, aimed squarely at an AOR market crammed with the likes of Tom Petty. If ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ had been given the production style of ‘Good Money’ it could have been a massive hit. As it is, it’s likeable enough, but also equally forgettable.

Leaving that complaint behind, I can’t help feeling that the band sat down, before writing the songs that comprise Wormslayer, with a tacit (or explicit) intention to explore the sounds of seminal 60’s artists. That’s no bad thing, more than 60 years have passed since the middle of that decade. The sounds might once again feel as fresh and exciting to new audiences as they first did back then. The resultant album hangs together nicely as a whole and there’s no shortage of cracking tracks.

“Diverse”

The intro to ‘Broke as Folk’, dark with echoing slide guitar and Hammond organ, brings to mind The Doors, but then shifts up a gear into the uplifting soft-rock style of early Fleetwood Mac. Likewise, ‘Shaunie’ has the distinctive English folk-rock tones of Jethro Tull. Importantly however, these comparisons are always through the “Kula Shaker Filter”, layering them with a recognisable ‘brand’. This is carried through into the striking cover artwork, which depicts a many armed Shiva-like figure in a fusion of Eastern and Western imagery. Along with ‘Good Money’, both these songs deserve release as singles. Coming almost at the end of the record, the title track is a seven and a half minute epic, which draws many of these diverse musical styles into a single coherent musical odyssey. This is new prog rock at its very best.

Wormslayer is an album that will please die-hard fans of the band. And, for those yet to explore the heady melange of Kula Shaker’s music, it offers an excellent introduction.

David Schuster( Writer )

David Schuster describes himself as an “adventurer, collector, musician and writer. Not necessarily in that order.” Growing up west of the Pennine hills of the UK and living his adult life east of them, he’s inclined to think that the Wars of the Roses were a mistake. David loves discovering new bands and musicians and is happiest listening to live music. He has travelled extensively in the UK and is fascinated by the variety, history and landscapes of the thousands of islands that comprise the British Isles. David is always reassured when online shops confirm that he’s not a robot.

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