Foals. My god, Foals are a fucking good band. One of the best live acts we have EVER seen (A Splendour 2014 highlight for sure), we were extremely excited by the recent news that a brand new album is on its way.
The press release describes Foals as “Britain’s most important guitar band,” and while I usually hate quoting press releases, I really do agree with the sentiment.
Foals make rock music that nobody else is making. Channelling bands like Queens of the Stone Age, Fugazi or Iggy Pop, they’ve taken a genre, flipped it on it’s head and come out the other end, creating an invigorating, exciting and entirely fresh sound. Live on stage? PHWOAR. No words to describe that one.
Anyway, this is What Went Down. It’s just come out, and it’s got a fresh new video clip too. Frantic, ferocious, progressive and heavy, it’s only getting us more and more excited for their upcoming album. Listen here:
The forthcoming album shares the name of this single – which is also the first track. The album was produced by James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence & The Machine), who ventured with the band to the South of France, where they reportedly recorded in a “rural 19th-century mill.” I’m not exactly sure what to picture there.
On the themes of cultural identity, anxiety, heartbreak and more, frontman Yannis Philippakis explains; “I wanted to tap into my inner madman and feel like I was channelling some sort of fevered creature”.
Track listing:
What Went Down
Mountain At My Gates
Birch Tree
Give It All
Albatross
Snake Oil
Night Swimmers
London Thunder
Lonely Hunter
A Knife In The Ocean
What Went Down comes out on August 28, but you can pre-order it right now, right here. It follows on from their mammoth 2013 release Holy Fire.