Review Summary: Shrill indie math-rockers turn into majestic anti-pop dark princes
Foals fall into two trends that have crept up in British indie music in recent years. One is that of emerging groups now (pejoratively) referred to as “NME-hype bands”. Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand etc. The second, more relevant trend, is that of impish, cheeky British indie bands, who come spectacularly of age on the sophomore album. The big examples of last year were The Horrors and The Maccabees, and now Foals have joined them in an insanely developed fashion.
Anyone who had even a passing experience of Foals’ 2008 debut “Antidotes” will know that their music was distinguished by the yelping vocals of frontman Yannis Philippakis and the spiky math-rock guitar lines of guitarist Jimmy Smith. These were underpinned by an equally mathematical and precise rhythm section, comprised of drummer Jack Bevan, bassist Walter Gervers and Keyboardist Edwin Congreave. However, the technologically prickly guitar lines and boyish howls have been all but dispensed with on the majestic “Total Life Forever”.
Opener “Blue Blood” introduces us to a totally different band. A beautifully thin and simple guitar line opens the album like a gentle pulse, and Yannis unveils that he can actually sing. The ostentatious yelps of youth are replaced by an understated, sombre voice accusing someone of having “blue blood on [their] hands”. The heartbeat like bass line transforms midway and presents another new item on Foals’ musical agenda- getting funky. Yet somehow the song still remains sombre. The combination of those two factors, as well as the escalating guitar parts, makes the opening track very reminiscent of The Cure. It’s followed by “Miami”, the album’s forthcoming third single. This track has got “summer anthem” written all over it. Massive chorus and an irresistible drum beat and bass line. Yet it shows us that the album is shaping up to be quite dark. That “Summer anthem” plaudit is written cunningly over this one, as it is full of haunting synths that sound like Ian Cutis’ spaceship and a lyrically vulnerable chorus where Yannis asks “would you/ be there/ be there for me?” The opening track hinted at it and the second track really confirms it for us. Foals have conducted a total sea change. They’ve gone from pseudo-abrasive post-Strokes indie to subversive, synth-pop dark princes who seem to count the Caribbean in their kingdom.
Having said that, the album’s title track (perhaps somewhat ironically) sounds the most like anything from “Antidotes”, primarily because of its plinking and addictive opening riff. But that’s about it. It plays host to a huge, bassy, building chorus and, lyrically, it reflects again the maturity of this album. The title comes from the Theory of Singularities in mathematics (which I like to think is an ironic nod to their math-rock past). Yannis sings “totally life forever/will never be enough/no!” A very mature musing. On fame? Success? Life itself? Who knows. It’s articulately and endearingly ambiguous. A spidery guitar line dances over lolloping bass and drums on “Black Gold”, giving way to an airy swoon of a chorus. Then comes one of the album’s two glittering centrepieces: the beautiful “Spanish Sahara”. The synths and Yannis’ heart-wrenchingly gentle opening vocal create one of those emotionally captivating moments that modern pop music so rarely finds. Swelling changes of dynamics and texture throughout build the track higher and higher, the inspired appearances of guitar, drums and bass stacking on top of one another like bricks in Foals’ new empire, crescendoing to an almighty central citadel of a chorus: “I’m the fury in your head/I’m the fury in your bed/I’m the ghost in the back of your head”. The track becomes massively dark, and is immediately followed by the album’s most radio friendly (yet by no means unexciting track) “This Orient”. The two contrast like yin and yang, standing gloriously at the heart of the album as two testaments to what Foals can do. The chorus (“It’s your heart/It’s your heart/That gives me this Western feeling”) is one of the biggest and best you will hear all year and the whole thing rises euphorically and fades away gently at the end in a way similar to Arcade Fire’s modern classic “Wake Up”. Instrumental “Fugue” is a slightly baffling 48 second and seems to play the role of unpretentiously segueing into the echoing synths and guitars of “After Glow”, one of the darkest sounding tracks on the album. Yannis is forlorn and heartbroken here, yelling “You were better than whatever came before/Without you here my heart is broken to the core”. Clichéd as it may sound, it’s raw and earnest to the ears, and the track shifts textures to a massive band jam session which can’t be played at anything lower than 11. “Alabaster” beats like the dark heart of someone wanting to escape their own personal demons, with Yannis singing about “religious regret and infinite debt” felt by the song’s tragic heroine, the “Alabaster lover”. Penultimate slow burner “2 Trees” is a testament to the progression of Jimmy Smith’s guitar work, with a wonderfully complex opening riff and a beautifully reverberating outro, which then melds into pulsating technological noise, the only time producer Luke Smith seems to aggressively rear his head. Closer “What Remains” finishes the album off with an ominously dark anti-pop chorus over the albums simplest musical moment- a sheer stadium rock stomp.
“Total Life Forever” may very well, in years to come, be regarded as a pop masterpiece. Because it is just that. Pop music. Yet tantalisingly dark, like a stream of pure water under a cloudless night sky. Depeche mode, but not actually rubbish. Yet it seems unlikely to have mainstream success, and indeed it seems the Oxfordshire boys aren’t aiming for that. You can tell that from the sound of the album, an also from the fact that several of the tracks do clock in past the five minute mark. The mature and sombre lyrical content and musical layers can make it a thinking man’s album, but not one that you need to sit in your arm chair stroking your sparse indie stubble over. With this album, Foals have transformed themselves into one of the most innovative yet enjoyable indie pop acts in Britain. May they enjoy total life. If not forever.
