A powerful album that deserves to be on the lips of others for many years to come.
Their first release as a trio, Foals‘ new album Life Is Yours takes you on an electro journey through the ups and downs that life constitutes, with an uplifting energy that leaves the listener feeling a euphoric sense of glee within.
The album breathes a new lease of life into the rock genre, encompassing a sense of 80s electro. This produces an ironically modern take, while other tracks on the album – such as The Sound and Wake Me Up – are reminiscent of a more earthy sense of Indie, as envisioned in Night Visions by Imagine Dragons – an album that I feel has been unrivalled on the Indie scene for the best part of a decade since its release.
Seamlessly encompassing two halves, the album includes the transitioning piece Summer Sky to separate and contrast the ebulliently easy-going sentiment encompassed in the first half, with the more reflective and cinematic style of musicality in the following tracks. While the first half leads you to feel positively upbeat about life, the second commands a drunken sense of reflection, mimicking a trance-like sensation that enables you to examine yourself from the outside looking in – an authentic sense of living. This is solidified by closing track Wild Green, which emulates a foggy haze with the power to transport you back to the starting sentiments of the album.
For this reason, choosing to listen to songs individually would do the album an injustice – whether this is an advantage or disadvantage, however, depends entirely on your listening style.
My three personal favourites on the album are 2001, Looking High and The Sound:
The first of the trio offers a unique backing track, filled – alongside classic elements of Indie and Electro – with a plethora of sound bites such as dripping water, which enables you to feel that you are in the midst of the dream realm of an 80s garden party, filled with sunshine and drunken bliss. Looking High oppositely takes you on an impressive multi-layered journey, forcing you to reflect on the chaos of your own life, while The Sound once more offers a complete shift in sentiment, with a quicker sound and dancey sense of panic that builds into a beautifully catchy crescendo of sound.
I was left with a weird sense of elation and contentment upon completion of Life Is Yours, making me want to consume its contents all over again. The album is certainly a stand-out piece of art, and will be one that remains in my mind for a rather long time – an impressive release from Foals, that makes me excited to see what they will go on to produce in the years to come.
Life Is Yours is out via Warner Music on June 17th, check out the video for 2001 below:
