Foals

As a guy who prides himself in knowing a lot about what's going on in music, while remaining completely and pleasantly aloof, I can't really pinpoint my introduction to the band Foals. I feel like I know them pretty well, but my music collection tells me I only have the one album, although my recent play counts would tell you theirs is the only album I've cared to listen to over the last few weeks.

What Went Down might be my favorite album of 2015 that isn't considered electronic, and while I admit to being a newbie in the Foals fold, I can do nothing but toot this albums horn because it's fucking tits from start to finish. Startits to finishtits. 

While discussing this album with a few different people who have no experience with Foals and explaining that I too have no previous experience with Foals, I've settled on the following description: Foals sound like a British version of Spoon meets a non-pretentious and comfortable clothes wearing Arcade Fire while shopping for undergarments at the same department store as V.A.S.T. and my favorite bork band Kejnu. But even more important than who they might fucking sound like, I'll put it simply: once it's in the ear, it ain't leaving.  

Foals feel like the soundtrack to the mundane, complete with grey skies when you wake up late, buy one get one dealies on avocados at the supermarket but they're all too fucking squishy, the post office losing your water bill payment and the shit getting turned off while you're gone for the weekend, whatever, it sucks but doesn't really matter that much besides being something else to complain about. This "everything around me is whatever" attitude is only broken at certain points throughout this album, when the beauty of what's pouring into your side face holes overtakes the grand and constant "meh" around you.

For example, when the first chorus of the title track "What Went Down" hits, I've already ripped off my steering wheel. Hell, I've already taken said steering wheel and flashed it at passersby, followed by a double fuck you from me fingers and then I light an imaginary cigarette in defiance (imaginary because I quit for good on August 6th, 2013. Fuck, cigarettes are delicious. And you look SO COOL! Sorry.).

The first few seconds of "Mountain At My Gates", with that limp wristed strumming style over the drums in the pocket into the verse and then into the bass by itself over the drums? Shit, I've already started the song over before it's hit the half way point. I sing this song into the mirror while I'm in the shower with passion, without caring to know the lyrics, and I'm fucking hip, hot, and cool. Fuck I'm so hot bro. For every jiggle I jiggle, a kegel kitten earns its wings.

On the song "Birch Tree", my Hawaiian shirt is unbuttoned the entire time, but instead of being on an actual beach, this fucking track makes me believe I'm in front of a green screen in some dark alley in some European country I never learned about in school. How is it fucking possible to be both boppy and sullen? This is boppy and sullen bro. 

The ooooo's over the plucked riffage of "Snake Oil" is fucking disgustingly lap slapping, but it's the intensity of everything going fucking insane at the same time that makes this song even more impressive. The first time I heard this song might be the happiest memory I've had by myself that didn't involve the police in three or four years. 

The underlaying bass line on "Night Swimmers", with the incessant meter of the drums, fuck, I've spent entire days listening to this fucking song on repeat it's so fucking addicting. If you listen to this song on a laptop faced the other way, all you can hear is the amazingly complicated tick tick tick of the drummer's rhythm and then when you return to a high quality listening experience it's fifty times larger than life and it all starts to make sense again. 

"London Thunder" is the song I was expecting on this album after geeking out over the first six tracks in that it takes everything down a shitload of notches and almost romanticizes the subtle mist that's coating everything in proximity. Talk about fucking dreamy, holy balls on a damp park bench in Brighton this shit has me by the chesticles and I'm wondering why everyone around me is wearing the same trenchcoat as me. This song is listless, lilting, and lazy, but I'm positive it's the perfect soundtrack for getting lost for no other reason than boredom.

The drumming on "A Knife In The Ocean" is so fucking deliciously on point it took maybe a half dozen listens to even pay attention to anything else. The limp and rolling snare work has me moist as a college girl watching Top Gun with a pillow between her legs, it's so fucking sexy. I would go steady with these drums if they offered me their letterman's jacket, no question. Talk about fucking perfect. 

If you buy one album this fall, make it this one. Not only is this fucking perfect chilly and chill music, it's perfect background noise for a get together and even more perfect music to introspect your ions bro. 

BACK TO MY LAP DRUMS.