March 22, 201015 yr Love 'This Orient' on first listen. Looking forward muchly to their new alb based on that and 'Spanish Sahara', which was also quality.
March 23, 201015 yr ‘Blue Blood’ If you didn’t know better you’d guess this was James Allan from Glasvegas on vocals. Why has Yannis Philippakis sung this track in a Glasgae accent? No matter: this is just jaw-dropping. If you want to set your stall out well, what better way than opening with something better than anything you’ve done up until this moment? Effortlessly trilling guitar lines are as much old Foals as they are the modern composition of Sonic Youth associate Glenn Branca. “You’ve got blue blood on your hands/I think it’s my own”, sings YP plaintively while the music turns into the sick sweet lurch that you feel in a club just before your stomach flips over. ‘Miami’ This is their so-called hip hop track. And if you think of it in purely those terms, you’re missing the pure delight of what it actually is. YP goes a bit Jay-Z for about four seconds and almost starts rapping about “salt in your wounds” and there’s something about the fetishisation of sleek '80s beats, sampled, cut up and looped that rings true but really this is The Cure in their ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’ pomp throwing down a banging afrobeat stomper. And is brilliant for it. ‘Total Life Forever’ Pure pop Cure again mixed with the twitchy, speed-withdrawal punk ska of early Police. But then it all vanishes and what is left behind is a group who have an understanding of pop’s dynamics similar to that of Animal Collective. The vocals build in semi-rounds, with lazy handclaps and the reach for crescendo, somehow, reminds you of acid house gone organic before flipping effortlessly back into twitchy Foals disco mode. ‘Black Gold’ Both the title track and ‘Black Gold’, with its refrain of “the future is not what it used to be” refer to American futurist Raymond Kurzweil’s unsettling vision of ‘The Singularity’, when human beings eventually evolve into artificially intelligent digital beings. It sounds like very early New Order if they had also featured Manchester legend, Durutti Column man and former Morrissey guitarist Vini Reilly playing sweet soul music. ‘Spanish Sahara’ As sparse and as gentle as the title suggests; the only other current band who would allow this much space into a track are The xx. This allows you to hear how Yannis’ vocals have come on, showing vulnerability in the grand tradition of Robert Wyatt or Guy Garvey. It builds satisfyingly to a crashing conclusion that wouldn’t sound out of place on Delphic’s recent debut. ‘This Orient’ This track showcases the band’s new production technique of human sequencing which involves the group standing round a huge sheet of paper that contains a grid indicating when the multiple vocalists should make themselves heard, like a huge, fleshy version of Cubase. The overall effect is very pleasant, like Steve Reich conducting a barbershop quartet. ‘Fugue’ Atmospheric piano interlude only 43 seconds long owing as much to Brian Eno as it does to Michael Nyman. ‘After Glow’ This is the closest to the old (ie young) Foals with its itchy, insistent, yelping groove that feels uncomfortable in its own skin. Skittering disco punk hi-hats and a guitar line of shattering icicles points the way out of the armchair, to the dancefloor perhaps. Just when it sounds like it’s getting a bit too contemplative, satisfying slabs of overdriven bass with the needles in the red are deployed. ‘Alabaster’ If Foals were Duran Duran, this would be their ‘Save A Prayer’ but they aren’t, so it’s ‘Alabaster’ with haunting use of backing vocals, popping up in bursts, mirroring the kind of finger-tapping approach to playing the guitar that they’re known for. This is mature yet emotionally deep indie rock but it must be said, even though there are ballpark similarities to Coldplay, they don’t stand up to any kind of analysis; they do remind one of a slightly more adventurous Doves or Elbow at full pelt on these more contemplative tracks. ‘2 Trees’ The combination of as light-as-meltwater, post rock, trilling guitars, with a reverb-heavy 4AD art rock sound here, masks even deeper aqueous bursts of Robert Fripp-style ambient six string effects. This in turn is just a mask for abyssal dub FX and mixing-desk trickery. Everything about this record says 'headphone contemplation'. Time is a luxury in which to peel back the gossamer layer after layer of sound. There's a hint of the krautrock/shoegaze production that Geoff Barrow did for the Horrors last year. ‘What Remains’ Again, this is the sound of a band comfortable with themselves, not leaping about trying to plug every gap in the audible spectrum range with yelping vocals, bursts of bass, clicking rhythm overdubs and frantically deployed guitar lines. A band willing to let the space between the instruments breathe and resound. Much kudos must be given to former Clor man Luke Smith who recorded this record for capturing an immense, late-'80s production job where everything can be picked out in perfect clarity. Verdict Foals’ follow up to Antidotes has seen them make an effortless jump from being a band with ambition who talked a good game to the real deal. Boring old c**ts who sit round moaning that there's no really good forward-looking music – that doesn’t sound like Karlheinz Stockhausen being sick into a sampler – should prepare to STFU. Some of the more hysterical audio elements that saw them occasionally running in Bloc Party’s slipstream and some of the slightly unconvincing math rock overtones that saw them dubbed Oxford’s premier Battles tribute act have evaporated. Sonically speaking they’ve lost their puppy fat and now they look gorgeous. -from NME.com SO looking forward to this now. 'This Orient' has already grown on me so much since yesterday. The verses remind me a lot of the Maccabees though! ;o (This of course isn't a bad thing)
March 25, 201015 yr Album cover has changed again! :lol: http://www.foals.co.uk/siteimg/fullimg/ugc-1/gallery/114/144.jpg Much prefer this one!
April 19, 201015 yr I'm not CRAZY CRAZY over it, but it's easily better than their debut. Miami is fantastical. Actually, the first half of the album is incredible the second half kinda lags.
April 27, 201015 yr Not going to be my favourite album of the year but this is a very very solid second album. LOVE the title track Total Life Forever amongst others. I thought that this might be disappointing but they've held up well.
April 28, 201015 yr This has grown VERY much since the first listen! The opening and the closing tracks are so far my favourites :wub:
April 28, 201015 yr It definatly starts off better that it finishes, but 'Spanish Sahara' is definatly the best track on there.
April 28, 201015 yr It definatly starts off better that it finishes, but 'Spanish Sahara' is definatly the best track on there. Welcome back Chris.! You also borrowed the previous 'fake' Chris' fanbase so you must be more popular now after that namechange :cheer: Spanish Sahara > Blue Blood > What Remains There's a <30sec song :nocheer: With the others ALL more than 4-5minutes at least this is odd!
April 28, 201015 yr Welcome back Chris.! You also borrowed the previous 'fake' Chris' fanbase so you must be more popular now after that namechange :cheer: Spanish Sahara > Blue Blood > What Remains There's a <30sec song :nocheer: With the others ALL more than 4-5minutes at least this is odd! tbh how much more popular can you get than number 5 on the buzzchart ^_^
April 28, 201015 yr Top 4. It'll get a while to get used to this name of yours without associating it to poppy Chris :lol:
April 29, 201015 yr OMG I'm listening to it atm for the third time and this album is incredible so far! 'Black Gold' is probably the best thing they've done. :o 'Miami', 'Total Life Forever' and 'Blue Blood' are AMAZING as well! But seeing y'all thought that second half wasn't as good as the first one i'm feeling kind of biased and afraid to listen to the rest haha :(
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