Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 2.5 / 5 Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
For a band releasing their debut album, Foals sure have a lot of guts. First, they scrapped the original mix of Antidotes, which had been helmed by TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek. Then they chose not to include their two hits singles, ‘Hummer’ and ‘Mathletics.’ They’ve also publicly laughed off the buzz they’ve been receiving in England (the band is from Oxford), basically proclaiming themselves failures before anyone else had the chance to. The result should be either a monumental failure or a home run, just to complete an epic that has written itself up to this point. Antidotes, though, is neither.
Antidotes is essentially techno with live instrumentation. Bass, drums and keyboards provide the repetitive, thudding beat that underlines the whole album and drives it straight into unrelenting mediocrity. Listened to casually, Antidotes is a fun, even energetic album. A close listen reveals something that is less adventurous than it might seem – a beat that is almost static throughout, and middling, monotonous lyrics that try to pass for introspective.
It proves difficult to even single out and discuss Antidotes’ individual tracks, as the album bleeds together with maddening ease. The only true break in the action is ‘Two Steps, Twice,’ a legitimately powerful rave-up, even if it is perhaps the guiltiest of the aforementioned lyrical problems.
Good on Foals for trying to diffuse the praise that was piled at their doorstep, as Antidotes prove that they need a couple more kicks at the can to cut the fat out of their sound.
