In February 2005, a Leeds five-piece emerged from the post-punk revival with an album that would define mid-2000s British indie rock.
Kaiser Chiefs’ debut Employment wasn’t just commercially successful—it was a masterclass in hook-driven, guitar-heavy songwriting that blended Wire-like angularity with pub-rock swagger. It’s the kind of album that deserves a 20-year anniversary tour, which is exactly what the band gave Melbourne last night at Festival Hall.
Employment marked a sonic shift for the band, who by then were in their second iteration — it’s a tight, aggressive indie album, built around jagged guitar riffs and Nick ‘Peanut’ Baines’ distinctive Yamaha organ stabs. It’s a vibe the five-piece manages to translate live, while leaving a huge debt to enigmatic frontman Ricky Wilson, who really carries the weight of their live interaction.
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Technically, the album’s production is surprisingly sparse, and so are the other members’ live personas —guitars are crisp and uncluttered, drums punchy without excessive compression, and the rest of the band are particularly reserved throughout. But it all creates a lot of space for Wilson’s sneering Yorkshire delivery, which has aged but hasn’t faltered. The sonic economy gives tracks like I Predict a Riot their infectious urgency, while Everyday I Love You Less and Less showcases the band’s knack for pairing caustic lyrics with irresistibly buoyant melodies.
British expats make the loudest Melbourne audiences (I’m slightly ashamed to admit). The fact that Kaiser Chiefs’ tour had been 13 years in the making added to this, but the singalongs came thing and fast. The album’s biggest weapon was always its live energy. I Predict a Riot – originally about Leeds nightlife chaos – became a festival anthem with audiences bellowing its chorus back at the band. The highlight, unsurprisingly, was Oh My God. It had arguably the largest response of the night, hidden deep within the album played chronology, and acted as a repreieve to the slower tracks surrounding it – its call-and-response structure turning the crowd into active participants.
Live, these tracks gain extra ferocity—Wilson’s hyperactive stage presence (executing a wide range of slightly drunken acrobatics) creates a loving sense of controlled pandemonium.
Two decades on, Employment remains a time capsule of mid-2000s optimism—before streaming fragmented music culture, when guitar bands still dominated mainstream conversation. Its legacy isn’t just the hits that still pack Festival Hall, but proof that smart, economical production and performance energy can turn a Leeds pub band into architects of a generation’s sound.
The Kaiser Chiefs of today tour these songs with a lot of gratitude, in the knowledge that they wrote a British indie blueprint.
