"no surprises" (Foals - What Went Down)

Foals
What Went Down

why you'll love it: Foals finally shows a little character
why you'll hate it: Still not enough to justify their style

Foals is one of those bands I just can't stop saying "what if" about.  Talent and high production drips from every one of their albums; yet only their fiery post-punk debut has a shred of character to it.  Their older-brother band, Bloc Party shares the same journey of never trying to follow up their popular debut.  At least Bloc Party tries something new with each release.  They may fail at it sometimes, but I can see what they're aiming for.  Foals... I can't describe why they abandoned almost everything that made their debut so great.  I can't even describe what took its place.  Just... boring old ballad focused rock.  For two albums, Foals have tried to make these epic, well layered rock songs, but they have no soul.  They sound like narcs.  It must be hard for this band to get drugs...

What Went Down sees Antidotes and a burned bridge far away in the rear-view.  They're never going back.  I've come to accept that.  So what now?  Talent alone kept their last release, Holy Fire, afloat, but another album of that is pointless.  The saving grace of What Went Down is a slight addition of grit and edge.  It isn't much, but for a band this good, even a little bit goes a long way.

The self titled opening track of What Went Down has the most life I've seen out of Foals since their debut singles.  It's hard hitting, a little bit messy (something new for them), and is more believable than their standard fare.  Nothing else on the album tries to run as dark, which is definitely a complaint, but a little bit of that grime seeps its way into most of the tracks.  "Mountain At My Gates" and "Night Swimmers" play out like standard modern Foals songs, but slowly get infected, and start to turn.  The transition in "Night Swimmers" is especially well produced.  "Snake Oil" and "A Knife in The Ocean" definitely benefit from a little "umph" as well. As a result of this small surge of a musical theme, songs that don't have it stand out more.  "Birch Tree" and "Lonely Hunter" would just be any other song on the last two Foals albums, but serve up some nice little soft melodies here.

By no means has Foals righted all their wrongs though.  There are still a couple songs on here that go absolutely nowhere.  The gritty influence of What Went Wrong is literally the bare minimum of what creativity they need to hold my attention.   It really goes to show how talented the band is at making music.  Even after a few weeks with the album, I've come back to it plenty of times.  This album is just fine.  Even their past couple albums have been "just fine" after you trim away the songs that don't work at all.  The thing is they used to be more than that.  There is nothing about how they play that says they can't be like that again, or anything they want to be.  It's as if they just... don't wanna.

Foals is like Randy Orton: the band.  All the talent in the world, but a seeming willingness NOT to have any kind of personality whatsoever.  So you can either tune out, or just enjoy the performance from a technical mindset.  VINTAGE YANNIS