Kasabian, the great heretics of British rock will mark their premiere performance in Asia with MTV World Stage “Live in Malaysia”.

The 21st century rock renegades combine a romantic’s heart, a poet’s lust for life and a lysergic vision, to sear the eyeballs of anyone who would doubt them.

“The third record is the one you’re judged on” says guitarist and vocalist Serge Pizzorno, referring to the band’s extraordinary new album, The West Rider Pauper Lunatic Asylum. “It’s where you’ve established yourself and people find out who you really are. In terms of success we’ve breached the walls. Now it’s time to destroy the system from within.”

While their self-titled debut and second album Empire have firmly established them as the regal rock icons of alternative rock and a fierce live act to be reckoned with, the new album is the sound of a band evolved at the peak of their powers. Two years in the making, The West Rider Pauper Lunatic Asylum is a fifty-two minute mash up of sky-scraping melodies, electro-punk riffs, Morricone-esque symphonics, Mariachi stomps and psych-pop lullabies; it is both a stadium sized declaration of intent and a bar-raising benchmark for rock music in 2009. Even better, it also flies in the face of disposable pop culture.

“The album was inspired by movies like (Alejandro Jodorowsky’s) The Holy Mountain,” says Serge. “It’s the soundtrack to an imaginary movie. We want to encourage people to listen to it as whole. At the moment people are being encouraged to pay seventy nine pence to download one song, and I think that really underestimates what genuine music fans want to listen to. We wanted to make an album which takes the listener on a journey.”

Getting here has been a process which started in 2007. As with all great albums, it’s been a tale of passion, perseverance and more than a few long dark nights of the soul.

“It’s about people escaping somewhere else when they take drugs,” explains Serge. “It’s a place of opposites where paupers can become princes. The way things are at the moment, it seems like a good place to be.”

Indeed. If the seminal and influential Endtroducing (DJ Shadow) and Dig Your Own Hole (Chemical Brothers) have defined the times, The West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum seems destined to soundtrack the end of the decade.

Let the madness begin.

For more information on Kasabian:
www.kasabian.co.uk | www.myspace.com/kasabian