Cast your mind back to January 2008 and you may remember that Foals we’re the ‘it band’. Somehow off back of only two singles their stars had aligned, even Buzzcocks presenter Simon Amstell got in on the act when he ribbed lead singer Yanis Philippakis on whether he had, “Any plans to convert this buzz into success?” Eventually, debut album ‘Antidotes’ did drop and in the midst of all the half hearted talk of sonar ambition what became painfully clear was the albums lack of singles. For a band that had grabbed the lime light on the immediate hooks of ‘Hummer’ and ‘Mathletics’, it was hard not to feel cheated that those barnstormers had been kept off the LP in favour of what were essentially another two elongated experiments.
A second album preview show at the Wedgewood Rooms was always going to an interesting prospect then. Which Foals would show up for the new songs? The art school traditionalists or Sitek inspired sonar-smiths. Well to dodge the question somewhat, I’m still none the wiser. Sauntering onstage to little fan fare and grinding their way into a new opening jam to replace the ferocious ‘XXXXX’, the general impression was more of five hundred people staring into a practice room than a sweaty hoard waiting impatiently for ‘Cassius’ to be dropped. With the workout finally dragging itself to an end though, things started to get moving with the back and forth rhythms of ‘The French Open’.
However, just as the gig began to shift into third gear, things stalled on new track ‘Alabaster’. Despite Yannis’ claims that “we’ve taken the last two months out to write”, a lot of what was played seemed very sketchy. Beginning on a set crunching organ chords, things eventually spluttered onwards in the classic Foals faire of doing a lot whilst producing very little, before breaking back for another batch of organ crunching and a four note outro. This sense of uncertainty was compounded with further newbee ‘O-Funk’, a song that fully lived up to its title by stringing the audience along for a tedious eight minutes.
To their credit, when Foals did revert back to the tried and tested tracks from ‘Antidotes’, they were played with such precision that it was hard not to admire the instrumental prowess on show. ‘Olympic Airways’, ‘Heavy Water’ and ‘Two Steps Twice’ may have been note perfect in fact but they still didn’t really seem to inspire audience or band into actually enjoying themselves. If some was to be scrounged from the experience it was from final fresh cut ‘Spanish Sahara’, an effort similar in construction to ‘The Race For Radio Supremacy’ that had much of the drive and direction that the night was lacking as a whole.
Ultimately though, and I may draw some fire from indie purists when I say this, Foals need to write some hits. By hits I don’t mean something big, dumb and brash that the Stereophonics will churn out for their next greatest hits tour, but a tune that channels all Foals’ eccentrics into one neat package. There’s nothing wrong about a band hitting for six, as they don’t sacrifice what made them unique in the process. From much of what was on display at the Wedgewood Rooms, Foals have seemingly lost their mojo in series of time consuming muddles. This band need to go back to basics and back to brevity.
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