Look again at these Kaiser Chiefs

Back when the Kaiser Chiefs emerged in 2005 - when the Leeds quintet was the first band on during the Philadelphia Live 8 show that July - they were lumped in with the Brit pack, bands like Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and Futureheads.

The comparisons were misleading, because the Kaisers - who will launch their U.S. tour in support of the effectively energetic Yours Truly, Angry Mob tonight at the Electric Factory (and take their name from a South African soccer team, even though their members all support second-division British footballers Leeds United) - trade in a grabby pop sound that's more reminiscent of those new-wave- era Mods, the Jam.

"I don't think we sound too much like those other bands," says keyboardist Nick "Peanut" Baines, talking from his home in Leeds this week. "But I do think we all had a similar idea about British music, which was 'Hang on a minute, we used to be pretty great, didn't we?' I think that penny dropped in a lot of minds, and we all decided to try to do something about it."

Baines, who's been stuck with his nickname since he was 10, when an art class self-portrait made his head look like a peanut, warms to the comparison with Jam leader Paul Weller.

On Yours Truly, songs like "The Angry Mob," and "Everything Is Average Nowadays," drummer Nick Hodgson and singer Ricky Wilson, who are the band's principal songwriters, show their knack for writing "social commentary that's not too self-righteous, that gets across their message in a simple way," Baines says. "And we're getting good at writing that catchy chorus that gets stuck in your head on the first listen and won't go away."