New Foals Track: Spanish Sahara
Foals flung out an announcement today that second album “Total Life Forever” will be released on May 10th, and also premiered on radio the first track from the new record, accompanied by the inevitably agonising jingles and Zane Lowe declaring that it’s “just awesome, man”. Well, he may be right, but more importantly “Spanish Sahara” suggests that Foals may have distanced themselves from the slightly frenetic sound that made them the favourite band of every irritating 15 year old. Faultless as their sound was, having an innocent enough but cringingly excitable teenager going through puberty next to you at gigs was always the worst thing about being a Foals fan. The fact that this is coming from someone who has only just turned 18 can probably only suggest just how excessively testosterone filled / Topman plaid-shirt-wearing their fan base was.
“Spanish Sahara” sounds far more self assured and assertive, wholly uninterested in NME chart placings and sales numbers. In fact, “Spanish Sahara” is almost completely guaranteed to entirely fail to bring Foals to a wider audience (although perhaps it will encourage a more mature one), but there’s no way that that was ever their intention. If there’s any consolation from this, though, aside from it being one of the most brilliant things that they’ve written, it’s the knowledge that if they have even remotely sustained this sort of focus and maturity throughout the whole album, they could be onto a bit of a classic, not simply the fleeting and forgettable sales success that has become quite common (hello, The Wombats; we haven’t forgotten about you yet, unfortunately). Actually, Zane said it all: “Just awesome, man.”
Foals – Spanish Sahara (Mount Kimbie Remix)
PS: You’ve no idea how hard I had to try to not mention the xx (woops). Oh well, hopefully you’ll see why I tried.
PPS: For the exceptionally organised, May 3rd will see the release of “This Orient”, the first single from the album. As if you’re going to remember.
