Review Indecision: Foals vs The Music
Sorry, I can't decide which of these two songs to talk about, and seeing as they both contain strident attempts to hypnotise the listener with the use of pounding rhythm - in much the same way that a blacksmith attempts to hypnotise hot iron with the use of an anvil and a flipping huge hammer - it seems reasonable to lump them in together for a little compare and contrast...
The Music - 'Strength In Numbers'
With the Music, it becomes transparently clear where Kasabian get some of their Zep-meets-Prodigy glamdance moves from, and you wonder why they're not as big as Serge and co. Especially with a song like this, which is just DESPERATE for your attention. Brickbats of sound rain down, while a ghost-girl exhorts everyone to band together for some kind of revolution.
(I know, I know, he's a boy. They're not real bricks in the brickbats either)
Anyway, the one thing the Music lack - as you'd probably guess from the total lack of imagination they displayed in naming their band - is an ability to project who they are out to an audience. I mean this is the first song to be taken from their THIRD album, and yet I can't name the lead singer without referring to Wikipedia.
It would help the band enormously to be more outgoing, especially as 'Strength In Numbers' comes across like a Levellers song, remixed by LCD Soundsystem and performed by Alvin & the Chipmunks. And if that sounds damning, well, let's just say Kasabian would have had the charisma to carry it off, and leave it there, OK?
Download: Out now
CD Released: June 9th
Foals - 'Red Sox Pugie'
Meanwhile, here's a band who people really like to puzzle over. The NME can't get their head around the NERVE of a band who could turn down the mix Dave Sitek did of their album, even though it's THEIR album and not HIS. Other people can't get past Yannis's yelps, or the lack of what pop fans would call "a proper tune" in any of their songs.
And their album came out to a wall of indifference, except that people do keep talking about them, and playing their songs, and that album keeps being picked out as one of the best of the year so far, and their live shows are clearly frenzied catharsis - for the band and audience - on a scale which is approaching that of Gallows, only without all the blood.
So what Foals possess at the moment, which the Music lack, is momentum and intrigue. Whether they can keep it up depends on what they do next, but this is another assured step in the right direction. It also very nearly has a proper tune, so who knows what other miracles they'll manage to achieve in the next 12 months...
Download: Out now
CD Released: June 9th
(Fraser McAlpine)
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