Album Review:

Foals
Total Life Forever
Release Date: 10/05/2010


In the last year or so, several bands have transgressed the stereotype of the ‘difficult second album’. The Horrors, for example, came back with a completely new sound – supposedly influenced by eating expired sandwiches from the bins behind Prêt a Manger – stunning the band’s fans and (many) critics alike. Well, if getting ill from eating a bit of soggy lettuce can inspire the conception of Primary Colours, could a series of weekends spent in a weed-clouded room on a strict diet of Psilocybin mushrooms cause similarly astonishing results for David Sitek rejecting, Oxford party-guys Foals?

A first listen finds the album open on familiar math-rock territory, although the pace has dropped and effects are used with greater restraint. Yannis’ vocals here, however, are a cause for genuine surprise; suffice to say, he actually sings! But fear not: what begins as a comfortably stripped-down piece gradually builds until the bass line, like an old friend, kicks in and you find yourself foot-tapping and head-nodding in a way that only the complex layered beats of Foals can make you.

While there’s no shortage of instantly gratifying pop moments – expect to hear one or both of ‘Miami’ and ‘This Orient’ soundtracking all that pill-popping malarkey on ‘Skins’ in the near future – the awkward, static beats and riffs which dominated Antidotes are largely replaced by refined, carefully constructed melodies and, at times, the kinds of textures you’d more commonly associate with shoegaze. Indeed, as though to flesh this point and perhaps complete the analogy with The Horrors, first single and stand-out track ‘Spanish Sahara’ is to Total Life Forever what ‘Sea within a Sea’ is to Primary Colours. Not only does the song showcase some of the most haunting lyrics this band have ever written (“Forget the horror here, leave it all down here, it’s future rust, it’s future dust”) but they complement and intensify the song’s over-powering eeriness as it builds towards its climax and, likewise, mark its sudden decline (“a choir of furies in your head”).

Total Life Forever then, is something of a classic ‘side A/side B’ LP. If its first half belongs on the indie club dancefloor, its more intricate and sombre second half demands dedicated listening; but crucially, both are hugely rewarding.

8/10

By Nathan Marks