Foals are set to release their new album Total Life Forever in May of this year and if latest single ‘Spanish Sahara’ is anything to go by I think we can assume that a bit of a direction change is on the cards. It seems like the band have stripped back a lot of the gritty disjointedness that somehow failed to transfer from intensely good live shows to recording on their debut album Antidotes, in favour of a bit of moodiness and some falsetto thrown in for good measure.

Listen to some of Antidotes

I’m not entirely sure I’m buying it yet but I’m glad that they’ve chucked some of the cheesier production that was heard on their last record…ok so the new stuff is slick but it doesn’t have those grating trumpets ruining perfectly good songs (you know what I’m talking about!). I can see a rawness here, which I can only hope the band have built upon in the rest of the new album because it’s exciting and interesting to listen to.

Mostly though, I just really like the video as it’s shot so beautifully and it is quite captivating. I’m a bit perplexed as to why only Yannis Philippakis (the ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ wagon-jumper of a lead singer) features in this video but his beard looks cool so I’ll have to forgive him somehow. I can only hope he doesn’t ‘pull a Corgan’ on the rest of his bandmates by tryin’a steal the show, because there’s some seriously tight drumming going on on ‘Spanish Sahara’. Keep a firm hold on that ego Yannis, you can do it!

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