Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 24/03/08
Label: Transgressive

From the very first moment people clocked eyes on Foals, it was obvious they were a serious proposition. Perhaps you were lucky enough to catch them live early on, five strikingly intense young musicians, blessed with precocious talent and names like Walter, Edwin and Yannis to match. Seeing them huddled together, locked in a high-intensity groove, gripped by electricity and energy, was a sight to match most on a live stage in 2007. At the head of the group, it soon became clear who was leading this unusually obtuse but equally exciting 21st century act.

Oxford drop-out Yannis Philippakis has, inevitably, become the smart poster boy for Foals, standing in the line of fire, testimony to their no compromise ideal, a theory many considered lost to a bygone era. Rallying against the hype machine which quickly had them nailed into a convenient, marketable box, Yannis ranted about this and that, his incisive articulations rather confused by co-option with TV shows "Never Mind The Buzzcocks" and "Skins". We can assume his hand has also gripped the creation of "Antidotes", Foals' arresting debut album.

With traditional vitriol, it is Yannis who defended the exclusion of vaulting debut singles "Hummer" and "Mathletics" and then reworked the "Grand Canyon" wide mix delivered by Dave Sitek from TV On The Radio. He is also the band's tennis obsessive and, one presumes, the '80s sci-fi movie wag behind closing song "Tron (Is A Great Film!)", one of the few concessions here to heart over mind, blood over machine. Make no mistake, as a thrilling bridge from The Rapture to Battles, Bloc Party to Mogwai, Foals have not failed. But neither have they created a masterpiece, a portable document to mirror the vivid élan of their live show.

"Antidotes" is frequently exhilarating, challenging but immediate, cryptic and catchy, calm then frantic, as intricate, itchy fret-webs are weaved around Afrobeat drums and far-out sonics. "The French Open" unfurls in thrall to Steve Reich and Terry Riley, but soon the guitars turn such old school notions into futuristic sheets of techno noise, while "Tron..." begins as robot music before the album gives way to a fanfare of horn skronk. Elsewhere, "Olympic Airways", "Electric Bloom" and "Big Big Love (Fig 2)" traverse claustrophobic, insectoid guitar swarms, dual syncopated and random beats and forlorn choruses that speak of "cracks in our hearts and heads".

Couched in the kind of bleak, post/9-11 ennui and experimental verve that places them as close to Radiohead as necessary to make the comparison, Foals have unity, ambition and mystique to burn. But, as we've said, "Antidotes" is no masterpiece. Taken as a whole, it is too cold, narrow, duplicated and processed. Philippakis also (perhaps intentionally) lacks lyrical insight and the absence of the unstoppable "Hummer", complete with its emphatic "We are everywhere" declaration, smacks of delusional belligerence. Unsurprisingly, nothing on here can match it. Still, Yannis was right about one thing. "Tron" really is a great film.

    by Ben Gilbert