Foals - 'Olympic Airwaves'
Aw...aren't they cute when they're sleepy? This is a band whose entire output until now has been all about hyper-caffienated jitter-indie, with scalded-tongue yelps over the top. Everything they have released to date has come from a place of massive intensity and energy, played with maximum fire and delivered with total abandon.
However, if this song is anything to go by, the boys in the band seem to have developed a tolerance to coffee and sugar, the late nights are starting to catch up with them and their energy reserves are starting to run low. What else could explain the muffled, 5am eeriness which has swamped their sound?
See what I mean? And it really suits them too.
Everything on this record is the kind of stuff you always get on your average Foals track...there are jibbering, chattering guitars, there's the solid disco backing, there's the fragile/entranced vocal noises (it's sort of singing and sort of not-singing, you see)...only this time there's a softer edge to it all, and you get the impression that the band are trying not to jangle their own tender nerves while they play.
Of course this could just be an attempt to prove they have range, and that their music is a car with more than one gear, but it's tempting to see this as a reaction to their own supercharged output so far.
Of course, for this theory to work, their next record is going to have to sound really tetchy at first, and then it'll need to fall apart half-way through and end with the sound of snoring.
That is unless they collectively go through some kind of detox procedure and come out the other side with some incredibly laid back and happy sounding new direction.
It's going to be fun finding out, isn't it?
Download: Out now
CD Released: October 6th
(Fraser McAlpine)
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