Music review: Foals, What Went Down

Foals

Foals
What Went Down
Rating: 4/5

Energetic indie rockers Foals have just the gee-up you need to escape the funk of everyday life.

With a nod to the New Romantic musical movement of the early 80s, the band are one of the more exciting rock acts to emerge in recent years, with their 2013 third album, Holy Fire, a modern classic.

Foals

Follow-up What Went Down kicks off with a stunner of an opening title track -- a dark, threatening, emotional, guitar-driven electro-punk beast that takes no prisoners. "I buried my heart in a hole in the ground," yells singer Yannis Philippakis. He continues with catchy rhyming couplets: "I fell for a girl with a port wine stain, I knew her initials but never her name".

Next track, the single Mountain At My Gates is more familiar Foals territory, with an indie jingle-jangle sound, groovy bass and a dancefloor-friendly beat, that builds to a breathless maelstrom of a climax.

But those are the best two tracks so largely it's mostly downhill from there. Not that there's nothing more to enjoy. A Knife In The Ocean in particular is a powerful album closer that perfectly conveys that whole screaming-into-a-storm-on-a-clifftop feel that seems to sum up Foals at their epic best.