Album review: Foals, Holy Fire

Buzzing on the news that Oxford lads Foals have managed to hit #1 on the ARIA chart last week with their third record Holy Fire – even managing to top their efforts back home in the UK where the record peaked at 2# – we thought it a fitting time to delve a little deeper into the release and find out how the indie act pulled off such a mean feat.

Taking a look at the band’s history, Foals have never exactly been well acquainted with the top of the Australian charts. Neither of the band’s previous releases, Antidotes and Total Life Forever, made it into the Top 50 – the latter only peaked at #68 and the former didn’t chart at all.

So what makes Holy Fire any different?

Well, for starters, it is a much more polished and directional than anything Foals have produced before. In contrast to Total Life Forever, which was sometimes criticised for being “off-balance” and “schizophrenic”, the new record – fittingly beginning with Prelude and finishing with Moon – is much more linear. Unlike on Antidotes where you’re thrown headfirst into math-rock guitar and chanted French lyrics, Prelude eases you in gently, building up over four minutes into what vocalist Yannis Philippakis has called some “unashamedly funk” guitar licks which in true Foals style are as gritty as they are funky. This brings you into single number one from the album, Inhaler – dark and emotive, you can’t help but feel Philippakis’ pain over a relationship at its end as he croaks and shrieks all while guitars and woodblock duel in that familiar Foals way. Although the second singleMy Number is much more bright and shiny that Inhaler, the two still work side-by-side much due to the skill of producers Flood and Alan Moulder. With Flood (aka Mark Ellis), the man behind U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb sharing the production chair, every track is sounds like a potential single and it is near impossible to pick a standout. Everytime and Milk & Black Spiders are particularly reminiscent of his work with U2 and on The Killers 2006 releaseSam’s Town. Having worked with synth-rock acts like New Order, Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode between them in the past, Flood and Moulder perfectly unite Foals math-rock roots with their newer synthetic elements, like those on display in Stepson. There is also plenty more funk to contend with on Holy Fires, exemplified in the bass lines of tracks like Late Night and Out of the Woods. Despite the ranging sounds, tone and influences on this album, Holy Fires hangs together perfectly, thanks in large part to great production.

As an Australian, I for one would like to imagine that early demoing with Lost Valentinos guitarist Jono Ma in Sydney had a lot to do with the success of the record. But in reality, it’s perhaps more likely that Foals are sounding more at home on this release because they recorded at home. Previous Foals releases were recorded across continents. The gritty sounds on their debut Antidotes hark back to where they were recorded, in Brooklyn with TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek. Their 2010 follow up was recorded in Gothenburg, Sweden with Luke Smith, known for working with other not-so-pop acts like La Roux, Franz Ferdinand and The Prodigy. This time around the five-piece recorded at Assault and Battery Studios in London, with two British producers whose resumes read like of who’s who of early British prog-rock and new wave and the results speak for themselves – a great British-made release from a British band showing more and more potential with each release. Let’s hope the lads keep making music on home soil for a while yet.