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Indie darlings, Foals, release their much anticipated debut album after what seems like an age of putting out demos and playing live gigs across the country. Formed of former members of the mighty, yet almost completely unknown, Edmund Fitzgerald, I was expecting a sound reminiscent of the heavy, gloomy math rock that the former band pioneered. That isn't the case however, as the music on offer here is far more accessible and poppy than I anticipated.

That's not to say it's a bad album. It took me a few listens to begin to appreciate it on the whole, but stand out tracks like Cassius and Balloons were instant hits. In essence, they've put out a bunch of bite sized experimental pop-songs. I really think they could've made more use of their instruments throughout the entire album as the breakdowns in songs such as Heavy Water are amazing and show what talent they have as instrumentalists. The vocals on the other hand are hit and miss, seemingly effective on the songs made for single release, but being too unimpressive for other songs where I wish they'd just let the instruments do the talking.

I think the next album will be make or break time for the band, they can either go a bit more leftfield and knock out some amazing tracks, or they could continue with another album like this and not reach their full potential as a band.

8/10

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Added by Grand Assault 3 months ago on 19 April 2008 07:07