The Futureheads – This is Not the World
And no, the world it is not, but it is another decent album of punchy, bouncy, punky indie pop from the Futureheads. They were kind of forgotten about after their second album News & Tributes, which is a bit of a mystery to me because I thought the song on that were almost universally enjoyable. In terms of idiosyncracy, it was a significant step back from their debut, but if anything I think the sheer stickiness of the tunes was stronger.
Perhaps this drift towards a less individualistic mainstream sound was what caused their label to can them, who knows. Maybe they just weren’t selling, because News & Tributes wasn’t very well received as far as I remember, no matter how much I liked it myself. Anyhow, in this day and age there was only one solution: become your own record label, and that is exactly what they did.
The vinyl releases Beginning of the Twist and Radio Heart come on beautifully designed vinyl; real effort was being made to produce things worth buying. Also, Irrespective of who wrote them, the phrasing of their mailing list emails was sincere and personal, despite obviously being mass mailouts. Basically, they seem to have done a really nice job of the whole business.
Musically then, where do we find ourselves? Well it’s punkier – more driven than News & Tributes, and less spasmodic than their debut album. The capacity to write incredibly infectious hooks seems to have suffered just a little, I would say, resulting in a record with a bit of a sludgy middle. That sounds bad, but there are some truly brilliant songs on this album. Broke Up the Time and Beginning of the Twist are just exceptional – boisterous, punchy and angry. There are others too, and the b-sides to the singles are good as well, so there’s obviously healthy productivity in Futureheads Towers these days.
That said, the slightly less than captivating title track and the three or four songs after it rather let this down. It’s good, and there are some great bits, but my feelings about this album are mixed, I’m afraid.
The Futureheads – The Beginning of the Twist
The Futureheads – Think Tonight
Website | More mp3s | Buy the album & singles direct from the band
It’s funny, but I tend to only get into Futureheads singles; I have both the S/T and News and Tributes, but off of those the only ones I listen to are Decent Days and Nights and Skip to the End. I’ve listened to both albums straight through, but no other songs grab me like those do. The Beginning of the Twist is a brilliant tune; there’s a show on my local alternative station here in the Bay Area that plays a lot of indie and imports, and when they played it a few days ago I started headbanging and jumping around my friend’s kitchen. Thankfully it was large enough that I didn’t do too much damage…
full album — realllllly good. definitely keeps me up and running — its like adrenaline to the ears. warner made a big mistake dropping these guys. Just saw this great interview of The Futureheads from their new album — witty buncha guys
heres the link — http://www.woozyfly.com/theskinnydip
check out this cool futureheads interview i just found — heres the link: http://www.woozyfly.com/theskinnydip
witty guys, they are