As my Popdose colleague Keith Creighton pointed out to me the other day, there’s a long line of Anglo-British males who have woven Indian musical styles into their own music, a trend that started with The Beatles and George Harrison. Keith isn’t wrong, but it’s not confined to white British male musicians. White women (some British, some American) have found musical inspiration in the subcontinent’s music and culture. Off the top of my head, I can think of artists like Alanis Morissette, Envy of None, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Danielle Dax who have all dabbled in Desi music.
So it’s not too surprising that Kula Shaker would, too. However, their overt nods to Indian music have been part of their style for 30 years. For lead singer-songwriter Crispian Mills, India, Hinduism, and its varied culture are part of his way of life. So is rock music from 1967 to 1972. Fuse those, and you get a variety of styles — sometimes in one song.
On their new album, that song is “Wormslayer,” the title track that’s a 7-minute, 40-second prog-like tour de force with all the elements that make Kula Shaker’s music both energetic and stylistically broad. It starts with a slow build, like their 1996 single, “Govina,” with Mills chanting a mantra softly over a lilting guitar and dreamy bass, and then the song transitions into a mid-tempo number with a kind of psychedelic keyboard work. But that’s just a warm-up for some truly kick-ass guitar. Mills, a guy who is not shy about trying out different tones and styles in Kula Shaker’s music, really adds a layer of heaviness that makes this song a departure from their previous album, Natural Magick (2024). “Wormslayer” truly rocks at times, but it’s not a one-note kind of thing. The band is seasoned enough to know that good songs in the prog tradition mean you have to add tempo changes, production flourishes, and pinches of vocal spice, like the addition of female vocals in Hindi during the bridge and rideout section.
Will “Wormslayer” and Kula Shaker – after 30 years of recording and touring – break through in the United States? There’s something very British about their sound that fuses Anglo and Indo styles, a style that continues a trend starting with artists like Sheila Chandra/Monsoon in 1981, to Talvin Singh, Bally Sagoo, and Cornershop in the 1990s.
The Popdose Premiere of the video for “Wormslayer” taps into a current trend among British Gen Zers: the resurgence of tabletop gaming as a social alternative to solo video gaming. The video channels a Stranger Things aesthetic, featuring a kid in a Bauhaus T-shirt rolling dice in a D&D-style game, battling an evil wizard alongside his fellow freaks and geeks who morph into anime characters. While the visuals embrace campy fun, the song itself is a serious, solid rocker – one that showcases the psychedelic, Indian-influenced sound Kula Shaker has tastefully refined over three decades.
Wormslayer is out now and available at the band’s website.
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