Customer Reviews

Total Life Forever

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Wow. How to describe this album. Much more thought out than the first. More mellow at times. Recognizable as Foals, but with a distinct air of cohesiveness and maturation that was not there before. I'm struggling for comparisons...One thing I like is that the album seems to have been created as a whole album..all the tracks fit and create a sense of meaning to the work as a whole. It's in the realm of a Talk Talk Spirit of Eden in terms of how all of the tracks fit together. One possible signpost might be the new Jack Penate album...mines similar territory a bit. great, great album that will stay with me for a while. Spiritual, deep lyrics too.

"Blue blood" opens Foals new CD and you'd be forgiven for thinking you were listening to Vampire Weekend. The song is groovy Bass- heavy Rock with trilling soukous guitar. Produced this time around by Luke Smith (formerly from Alt Rock band Clor, their debut was produced by TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek), where "Antidotes" was a more electronic Dance/Rock affair, "Total life forever" is groovier with a loose feel.

"Miami' finds lead singer Yannis Philippakis sounding all Robert Smith-like on a catchy midtempo groove. The Dancey title track with chanted vocals sounds like Foals of yore. The stomping "Black gold" features choppy riffs and haunting harmonies with a euphoric climax. "The future is not what it used to be" sings Philippakis in a new found croon.

It's tough to pick a standout really, the almost 7 minute-long epic ballad "Spanish sahara" (with a slow building intro, increasing in tension before exploding into life towards the end), the frantic "This Orient" (with dizzying guitars), the piano interlude "Fugue", "After glow" (starts off as a ballad, leading to stomping Disco-tinged climax), the falsetto sung "Alabaster" (which starts off elegiac, building to a ballad with crunching/fuzzy beats), "2 trees" (with a floaty feel), and closing atmospheric ballad "What remains", everything thrills.

As good as their debut was, this is even more ambitious and wide screen. A wonderful head trip!

Total Life Forever took me a few listens and there are some great, great tracks here (Spanish Sahara, After Glow, 2 Trees). It's definitely more mellow than Antidotes. And there aren't as many moments here that blow me away as on their prior album.

Still, I will buy the next Foals album without question. To be clear -- this is not a misstep or a disappointment - because how could anyone better a debut as good as Antidotes?

This album speaks for itself. My favorite album of 2010 and if you get a chance to see them live, do it. One of the best shows I've seen in years and they sound absolutely incredible! Now if they would just release a collection of B-Sides.

This album really is tops. The musicianship is impressive, the production is as good as it gets, and the emotion stuns you every time you hear it. [Their live show is pretty amazing as well] The track 'Afterglow' really stands out as the favorite here but all of them are incredible excluding the song 'This Orient'; it's not terrible by any means but it seems entirely out of place on this album (a purely subjective opinion) and would have been a more appropriate b-side. It can't be stated enough how perfect the production is on this album. It's like every part of every instrument is precisely where it should be and couldn't possibly work any other way; kudos Mr. Smith. After obtaining this on vinyl at their live show, I am convinced that it was made to be played on a record player. The guitars sound incredibly warm and the bass is HUGE and perfect. This album deserves to be purchased, no question.

With post-punk asthetics. syncopated rhythms and a wide range of guitar sounds, The Foals fill a gap of sound missing so much in this new decade of the new millenium. Guitars play trills, drums pound out new wave dance beats, and subdued singing create a different edge than what we've heard for most of the past year. The dance-math-punk vibe (think: Talking Heads, Gang of Four) feels stranded on a tropical island, as evidenced by such tracks as "Spanish Sahara," a soaring melodic mess that is both uplifting and dreamlike at the same time. "2 trees" lets the two guitar lines duel for control of the song but ultimate it's a beautiful stalemate. "Black Gold" shakes back and forth with drums giving marching orders to the band to play around with great results.

At times it sounds like a direction that Bloc Party chose to abandon ("This Orient" in particular); other times the songs feel predictable in their slow build up and frenzied explosion at the end. Despite these shortcomings, this is an exceptionally well made album. Calculated in construction, "Total Life Forever" doesn't replace the promise that The Foals debut record brought, it only cements them further as a band to watch and be ready for in the next few years. Recommended.

When i heard Spanish Sahara last spring it blew me away. It's taken me a while to pick up the album since it came out but it lived up to every expectation i had. Less aggressive than it's predecessor Antidotes, it's sounds now swirl around and engulf you in layers of music. Where Antidotes' jarring staccato guitar lines urged your feet to move, Total Life Forever's all about the tense build up, most evident on the afore mentioned Spanish Sahara (incidentally the best track on the album imo, and probably one of the best songs released this year).

The bands progression is evident here and I look foreward to whatever they do next with anticipation. In the meantime, what they've made here is a stunning album and not a weak track to be heard. Buy it. And go see them live; ridiculously good.

The title of my review says it all. Foals are the future of Indie music, and they are my new favorite band. This is a stunning and perfect album.

This album was definitely one of the most anticipated albums for my music library this year so far. I am happy to say that I am not disappointed.

This really is a solid album. I have to admit, I have only listened to it a few times, but with every listen I like it more and more.

I gave this album 4 stars because it, for me, is not as good as 'Antidotes.' It is more, for lack of a better way to put it "chill" than 'Antidotes.' But that doesn't mean that the talent isn't there. Because it definitely is. It is just styled a little differently.

Standout tracks for me were: "Miami," "This Orient," and "2 Trees." (Again, this is just my opinion, and it could change with a few more listens.)

All in all, I really do enjoy this album, and it's a solid sophomore release.

Everything that made Antidotes so exciting, so original, and just so nearly perfect is gone. No more beautiful interplay between guitars and keyboards, no more driving and intricate beats, no longer a whole much greater than the sum of its parts. Now it's just a big smear that sounds like any other junk indie band. Did I mention the bad singing and silly lyrics? A huge step backward for what was one of my favorite bands.