Foals - Antidotes

Foals
Antidotes
Sub Pop Records/Transgressive Records
Grade: A-

Admittedly, this review of the Foals’ Antidotes is coming significantly late after the record’s original release – in early April 2008. One of the reasons is that I have been rocking to Antidotes in my car for months, and it always seemed awful to me to replace the disc with something possibly not as sexy. Whatever the reason, Foals are our artist of the month with their grand fourteen-song debut Antidotes.

Coming out of Oxford, England, the Foals are a five-piece that create dancey indie-punk songs – something that crosses the cool of Brooklyn indie rock with the European desire for something electronic and sexy to dance to. They’re like a clean, rock-centered Bloc Party, and better for it. After fine crafting songs for a debut record, Foals crossed the ocean to work with TV on the Radio guitarist David Sitek in Brooklyn. The band and Sitek also brought in during the recordings the afro beat band Antibalas for horns and Celebration’s Katrina Ford to offer vocals. The result is a tightly crafted, catchy-as-all-hell, dance rock record; the type of record that reinvigors your interest in the spectacle of music.

Antidotes starts slow on “The French Open” with Wolf Parade-esque awkwardness with a smattering of horns and bass before the guitars tighten to high picking notes – a common practice – and the song starts moving to sexy levels. Reportedly, the song is a kind of ode to tennis player Andy Roddick. The follower “Cassius” is really the first place where the dance and excitement builds up with dance bass line and keyboards. Other tracks that are as sexy dance love fests include “Electric Bloom,” “Balloons,” “Tron,” and the sweet ass bonus track “Hummer.” It is not all dance club for these boys though. Ohter songs on Antidotes are similarly appealing but don’t necessarily make you want to dance in a club. Among the best of these are “Red Socks Pugie,” the bombastic “Big Big Love (Fig. 2),” and bonus track “Mathletics.”

Perhaps this late review will give the record a second wind and get more folks to check out the terrific Foals. Whatever your entry point, you should give a few good minutes to discovering Foals.