When we think of bands that emerged from the dreaming spires of Oxford, Radiohead, Ride and Supergrass immediately spring to mind. All rose to prominence during the giddy Britpop years of the 1990s. In 2005 another Oxford band was formed from the ashes of The Edmund Fitzgerald. They would give the nerdy genre of math rock a most welcome shot in the arm.
Until Foals came along, strikingly led by the live-wire Greek-born singer Yannis Philippakis, math rock was the preserve of the geeks and the squares. The genre was predominantly populated by po-faced young men stroking their beards and muttering about effects pedals.
Artists such as Slint, Tortoise, and Mogwai brought post-rock to a global audience. Battles put a new spin on it. Foals took these templates, added more vocals and catchy pop hooks, and patented their own version of the Franz Ferdinand trick of making music you could dance to.
It helped enormously that they were a killer live act, inspired by the ferocious intensity of David Yow and Jesus Lizard. They memorably delivered a great set back when it was still acceptable for more mature music fans to attend Longitude in Marlay Park.
Somewhat surprisingly, Life Is Yours is their seventh studio album. It was recorded in Speedy Wunderground studios in south London and Peter Gabriel’s Real World complex in Bath, and is the first Foals album to utilise a team of different producers, namely John Hill, AK Paul, Miles James, and the seemingly ubiquitous Dan Carey, who produced recent records by Kae Tempest, Wet Leg and Fontaines DC.
The results are a mixed bag that occasionally hits the heights of their stellar debut, Antidotes (2008), its highly ambitious double album follow-up, Total Life Forever (2010), or the career-consolidating hits of Holy Fire (2013). The lead single, Wake Me Up, hurtles pleasantly by without being especially memorable.
This sums up Life Is Yours. It’s fine, but far from excellent. 2001, with its sun-kissed references to beachside candy cane and Brighton rock, is a decent attempt at a euphoric summer song, reportedly written in the dark depths of a pandemic winter, but like much of this album, it meanders along without really hitting home.
One of the stronger tracks, 2am, is a prime example of Foals being very good at being Foals and would sit comfortably alongside their best work. Perhaps Foals have already done more than enough to be as highly regarded as their illustrious Oxford peers, and you’d expect them to put together a killer set list for their appearance at Fairview Park later this month, but you get the lingering feeling that they can do a bit better than this.
