Within the first seconds of Total Life Forever opener "Blue Blood", it becomes clear that Foals have taken a leap. Front and center, between tick-tocking guitars, frontman Yannis Philippakis begins to sing. When Foals' debut, Antidotes, sent the UK press into hyperbolic fits three years ago, Philippakis boasted what Pitchfork's Tom Ewing perfectly described as a "blank bark"-- one faceless particle amidst many mathematically arranged dance-punk elements. Philippakis was often indecipherable in a way that encapsulated those problems Foals' music suffered from as a whole: Their songs were fussy, calculating, and impenetrable, despite a ton of hooks. They could knock you down and they could make you glitch out, but finding an emotional connection was a challenge. In Total Life Forever, the Oxford quintet have not only opened up themselves and their sound, they've done so without abandoning the path that put them on the tips of tongues from the beginning.
They started by turning their songs inside out. Each of Antidotes' tracks was vacuum-sealed and tightly-packed, little space to be enjoyed between every pinballing polyrhythm and guitar figure. Though Foals were wise to add layers of horns and other muscles to the mix, it was difficult to feel as though there was any place to hang out within the song as a listener. At every turn, Total Life Forever is inviting. Much more alive than earlier efforts, it's an album with a complexion that constantly changes with time. When Philippakis' voice is first introduced in "Blue Blood", it's done with cavernous levels of reverb, his thin, delicate falsetto distant and sweet enough to recall My Morning Jacket's Jim James. The rest of the band quickly begin to do its thing with fewer rules: There's a much looser, much funkier feeling at work here, the poppy skronk of "Miami" or Chili Peppered licks of the titular track two early examples at work.
The album's second half doesn't fare so well, drowning at times in aqueous atmospherics. Single "This Orient" begins with some fizzy vocal textures and snare cracks only to morph into leftover Bloc Party. "Alabaster" doesn't boast any of the energy one could find in "After Glow" and closer "What Remains", both of which make devastating use of their song structures. But those missteps sound simply like growing pains. Without doubt, the record's finest moment is sprawling early blog hit "Spanish Sahara". Foals' music has frequently felt monumental in scope, often at the expense of the listener. But the way this one song in particular blooms, from its first traces of guitar melody to tear-jerking coda six minutes later, garners more goosebumps with every listen. It sounds exactly like what they set out to accomplish, done fluidly and organically. And in there, from the first few seconds to the very last, is a clear pulse. It's not difficult to find.
