Photo credit: Edward Cooke
Foals’ latest album – ‘Life Is Yours’ – opens in boisterous fashion with the dancey disco-meets-samba beat rhythms of the title track. It has an introduction that demands you shuffle your feet with Yannis roaring out the words: ‘Life is yours, I heard you say’. ‘Wake Me Up’ continues in this assertive vein although this time statements like ‘I’m kicking down the doors, I’m climbing up the walls’ and a call-and-response chorus are delivered against an ambitious art rock soundtrack. In fact, Foals have never sounded more like Talking Heads than they do here… And that’s no bad thing! Another recent single, ‘2am’, follows with personal lines about finding yourself – ‘I can’t sleep alone. I just want to go home and it’s 2am again’ – belted out amidst groove-laden guitar hooks.
This soulful sound continues on the Prince-esque ‘2001’ before ‘Flutter’ takes the album into a more psychedelic direction. It’s back to pure ’80s pop vibes on ‘Looking High’ – an anthemic, sun-drenched piece that combines lyrics about nostalgia with dream pop melodies and falsetto: ‘Look me up, look me down’. ‘Under the Radar’ moves into an electro sound with talk of UFOs flying overhead undetected. But don’t worry, Foals haven’t turned into Muse. The penultimate ‘The Sound’ expertly weaves from pure pop moments to a jazz freakout with a wonky bass line before ‘Wild Green’ brings things to a close with an electronic, experimental and overall anthemic sound (with all the beats) that made us think of M83 or LCD Soundsystem.
‘Life Is Yours’ – and this album provides a fitting soundtrack.
