album of the week: 5.4

Foals

Total Life Forever

Transgressive Records (2010)

why you'll love it: impressive guitar melodies, solid first half

why you'll hate it: lousy attempt at a matured sound, weak second half

What is going on with England? I have been nothing but disappointed by my favorite bands from the area this year. Hot Chip kicked 2010 off with a pretty good album, but one that does not play to their strongest points. It's only gotten worse from there. Gorillaz released an album that is only half good, and fully devoid of Gorillaz spirit.

Now we have come to Foals, who in 2008 surprised many with a post-punk masterpiece called Antidotes. Full of energy and originality, it was also one of the best produced albums I've ever heard. It's pretty clear to me that in Total Life Forever, Foals either has a bad case of writer's block, or have made the critical band mistake of biting off more that they can chew.

The frayed and frenetic guitar playing style is still knocking about in this sophomore release, but it is bogged down with the boring premise of "maturity". Foals wants you to believe what they were up to before was kids stuff. It was too immediately enjoyable. They're grown ups now, and grown ups don't eat candy and party; they work and eat their vegetables! So now in order to get to the meat of a song, you have to sit through 2-3 minutes of monotonous brooding rhythm.

I listen to a little bit of post rock, I'm no expert. But in the few bands that I do prefer (Battles, Do Make Say Think), these bands are great because they do their slow building parts super well. In their songs, the big climb (if i may use a roller-coaster analogy) is just as compelling as the madness that eventually follows. Foals does no such thing here. Yannis Philippakis has traded in his haywire convulsing vocal style for a monotonous drone (because as you know, kids scream, adults sing).

The first few songs of this album are pretty good. The opening track passes through mostly unscaved thanks to its hypnotizing chorus, but is a fair warning of what's to come later. "After Glow", with pretty much nothing going on until the electronic clusterfuck three minutes in, is the only highlight of the second half. The final few tracks don't even bother with big moments, just guitar wankery.

Don't be fooled by the second half of this album! It is not as epic as it pretends to be. "Spanish Sahara" is a prime example. It drags on, until the cymbals crash and they just play louder, repeating itself. Not a good formula. The "epic" market is currently oversaturated, and Foals doesn't come anywhere near rising to the top of this pile. This album seems to have only come up with a bunch of jangly guitar moments and stretched them out to sound intelligent. Bad time management, Foals. Stick to your strengths and find ways to manipulate them, don't just Tom Yorke around for three minutes before you deliver and call that "maturity".