Album Review: Foals - Antidotes
Everybody seems to love TV on the Radio; they are like the grandfathers of the whole indie music scene. Old 30-something alterna-kids and 20-something hipsters can agree about them and go on and on about how they love Dave Sitek and TV on the Radio. Foals are obviously a fan and after a few popular college radio singles in the UK, they hired Sitek to produce their debut album Antidotes, a major coup for an up and coming band. The reason I say “was” is that after recording and mixing the album, Foals listened to the mix and threw it all away in disagreement over the sound. Normally, such a risky move would fail and blow up in their face and surely they have lost some street cred, but rest assured, Antidotes is a phenomenal album and will be very hard to compare to the bootleg that I’m sure exists in Sitek’s closet.
The first noticeable achievement with the album is the seemingly flawless combination of two seemingly different styles. “Math rock” is a term used to describe bands like Battles and features heavy distortion, dissonance, and a reliance on guitar-laden sampling to achieve various levels in a song. This can be annoying to some, due to the unconventional sounds and distortion, but can inspire a lot of people to feel the rhythm that exists. Not to mention, the hardcore music nerds can sit back and appreciate it on a critical level. The Rapture have been around for ages now and have been known for usually very clear spoken lyrics, horns, funk, punk, discordance, and rock all wrapped up in weird, dancey package. Foals take the best parts of The Rapture and math rock and unleash it on this album. Antidotes won’t scare off folks who like listening to melody and lyrics, but can also appeal to the crowd who listens for the beat and rhythm. Hard thing to do nowadays, but Antidotes delivers.
Basically, the first six tracks of the album are where it’s at. “The French Open” starts off the album with a little bit of everything, extended guitar rhythm sections, a good interplay between drums and horns. Oh, and lyrics in French. Definitely sets a pace for the album to follow. Track two, “Cassius”, is the band’s primary single and doesn’t disappoint, with steady cymbal work on the drums and distinctive guitar distortion, combined with a good pop song structure, providing a moving song that is undeniably single-worthy.
“Red Sock Pugie” is a change of pace. The song relies heavily on percussion throughout, with drums starting and some interesting drumstick clicking later on. Also the band shows their fondness for playing with the stereo mix and changing volume and effects from left to right. “Olympic Airways”, one of the more soothing songs on the album, is also one of the hidden gems, using reverb to its best ability and piano-esque guitar tones. “Electric Bloom” is one of the more aggressive songs, with vocals echoed throughout and percussion a little on the distorted side near the middle of the song. “Balloons” is another one the singles roungind out the starting six. It has a very catch hook and combines with some shouted vocals to go along with MGMT’s “Kids” as a very summer 2008 song, meaning it’s the kind of song to make you forget about 5 dollar gas for a moment and enjoy some music.
The rest of the songs (the whole five of them) are well made and sound similar in style to the already mentioned tracks. There are no departure points here. Antidotes flows rightfully so, with ebbs and flows, except these ebbs and flows are a little more “funkay” and rely on technical guitar work. Overall, the album is high quality; Foals turned a seemingly foolish decision by not using Dave Sitek’s mix into something that works for them as a band. Few albums this year will start with such a strong opening and for people that like to jump around or don’t listen to a whole album, this is a great way to get a flavor for the band.
For anyone who might be familiar with Foals from their few early tracks like “Hummer” and “Mathletics”, there is a Bonus edition of the album that features these tracks. Foals has been on record stating they felt it was important to create all new songs for Antidotes and didn’t want to rely on old singles to fill up a debut album. This bonus disc is great if it can be found, the singles show an early side of the band and really show how polished Antidotes is in comparison. Also, the selection of live tracks on the bonus disc gives a great indication of their live sound, seeing as they are touring around the world and are playing festivals like Lollapalooza.
Rating: 
Check Out:
“Balloons”
This is the original anonymous responsive poster here. It’s quite amazing that the folks who write this “blog” try to intimidate people who respond negatively to their posts by ganging up on them and calling them out for not posting their names. This isn’t my “blog” so I have no interest in posting my name on here. Moreover, putting “like” in front of “grandfathers” doesn’t change anything. Could you say “that 7-year-old boy is like that 5-year-old boy’s grandfather”? Does that make any sense? Because that’s what you did when you said that TVOTR was like the grandfather of indie rock.
It’s cool that you guys don’t understand the history of music - I mean, this is a blog who called the Ramones overrated today.
Whenever anyone says heavy distortion, they figure it is about guitars. I apologize for forgetting that, I was referring to the unorthodoz changes of the vocals like in Battles and other bands.
““Math rock” is a term used to describe bands like Battles and features heavy distortion, dissonance, and a reliance on guitar-laden sampling to achieve various levels in a song.”
Do you know WTF you’re talking about in here? Math Rock is heavy distortion? No way man… Go to wikipedia. Hope you get your ideas clear. Good review apart from that
Cheers
Hey anon do you uh comprehend things? The word “like” before “the grandfathers of the whole indie music scene,” implies that everyone in the indie scene can get into them. As in the appeal to old and young which normally only happens with CLASSIC bands. Such as your Pavements, Sonic Youths, and your Nuetral Milk Hotels. OMG WHAT A NAME DROP! I’M SO HIP AND WITH IT.
I know I do. Dude at least have the balls to not post Anonymous. Shit my casturated dog has more balls then you.
Wow Anonymous you can name some “far out” bands, never would I have ever heard of a band like Sonic Youth, Sleater- Kinney, or of all things Pavement. Wow you must be so cool and “underground” to name such bands. Jesus Christ, give me a break. Lets pull out bands such as Mudhoney and Bad Brains to make ourselves feel better about mentioning “underground” bands and not main stream because god forbid I mention a band like Nirvana or Pearl Jam. Give me a break and back off. I wish I could be as cool as you!
Anonymous,
Well, the album technically came out in the US in April. Also, if you read my first two lines, I say “like” the grandfathers, meaning a large group of people believe they actually are the grandfathers of indie music. Not everyone is the same age, people explore music at different rates, and some people are wrong, but I don’t fault them for it.
Thanks for the comment and thanks for questioning the things you read online that people write about music, I will continue to do this too after reading your comment.
Anonymous, Thanks for your comments, though I do wish that if you’re going to take the time to voice your thoughts, you don’t feel like you have to hide behind the no name tag.
Anyhow, while I won’t respond to Russell’s analysis considering it is his opinion, I would like to note that we do post old reviews at times for a variety of reasons. For example, in the case of this album, the Foals are begining to gain quite a bit of attention of late, especially in the last month or so, and combined with the fact that this summer has been a little dry in terms of new releases, I believe it would be appropriate to post a review like this. If anything, it at least introduces a few people to a new band.
But thanks again for your comments.
Is this review a joke?
First of all, the album came out in March.
Second of all, you didn’t really refer to TVOTR as “the grandfathers of the whole indie music scene,” did you? They’ve released two full lengths, the first of which came out in 2004.
Have you ever heard of Sonic Youth, Sleater-Kinney, Pavement, etc.?
It’s like you guys were born this year and were unaware that music was made before it.
Stick to collecting festival lineups.