Foals appeared on the scene a few years ago riding a wave of hype following their extremely strong first singles, released a slightly disappointing first album, and then seemed to sort of disappear. For a long time I didn’t read a single piece of news mentioning them at all and no one in the community was really discussing them. In all seriousness, there were actually only 2 years between ‘Antidotes’ and ‘Total Life Forever‘, but for a band surrounded with so much hype initially (which died out very quickly) this seemed like a much longer period of time. I guess this is because bands hyped as much as Foals tend to rush out a second album very soon after the first to capitalise on this hype. I’m very glad they didn’t. ‘Total Life Forever’ was definitely worth the wait.
‘Total Life Forever’ is distinctively a Foals album; chock full of complex and danceable rhythms coupled with angular yet intricate and melodic guitars. What distinguishes it from ‘Antidotes’ is the maturation of the song writing and the development of Yannis’ vocals – on ‘Antidotes‘, the vocals were yelping and spiky, and the song writing was hit and miss. The band displayed moments of brilliance and genuine invention, but also displayed moments of banality and badly developed ideas (this inconsistency was heightened by the disappointing decision not to include many of their early singles such as the brilliant Hummer and Mathletics). ‘Total Life Forever’ features a much more subdued and melodic Yannis and much more consistent and mature song writing, making for an altogether more cohesive work.
Lead single Spanish Sahara is a perfect example of this maturity of song writing. In a surprising move, the band eschews danceable rhythms in favour of slowly developing atmospherics. The song begins at an almost whisper quiet level with a few simple chords and a skeletal drum beat, gradually quickening this understated rhythm and increasing the intensity in slow fits and bursts into a rousing crescendo that – even at its peak – still sounds reserved and bleak. The first half of Spanish Sahara sounds very little like the Foals we know and love and it makes for a rather surprising first listen. The only clue it is the same band comes when Yannis begins belting out the chorus: “forget the horror here, forget the horror here, leave it all down here, it’s future rust and it’s future dust”. Those fans who only liked Foals for their catchy and spiky dance pop are going to be disappointed by this. Those of us, however, who could see the potential for this distinctive Foals sound to develop will be impressed by this genuinely serious and heartfelt collection of songs. We may not be able to dance quite so easily to any of it, but we will get much more from it as a work of art and it will hopefully stay with us for quite some time.