Round-up Tracks: Foals, FKA twigs & More

If last album ‘Holy Fire’ took them down into the oceans of a sandblasted, post-apocalyptic earth, ‘What Went Down’ is shaping up into Foals’ monstrous ascent up to the now-unoccupied heavens. Taking up a golden throne, atop a stack of hulking, world-shuddering anthems, ‘A Knife in the Ocean’ is a barely reined-in boulder, Jack Bevan’s strange, sharped-elbowed beats fuelling majority of the chaos. It’s an album closer so massive it threatens to unhinge itself and set off on a rampage without warning, like a rogue hot air balloon, or a petrol-drenched forest fire.

Yet, despite all of that saturated danger, and tension - ‘A Knife in the Ocean’ balances on a knife edge, after all - these are also some of Yannis Philippakis’ most hopeful lyrics to date. “Now that we’re older, the future is colder, but what is there to do?” he asks at first, and ‘Spanish Sahara’s future rust and future dust returns in a different form. This time, though, there’s an uprising, a resistance. “The fire is coming, we’ll outrun it, never be undone.” Foals, undone? On the strength of ‘A Knife in the Ocean,’ they’re not due a usurping any time soon. (El Hunt)

FKA twigs is a distinctive force, blurring the borders between intellectual message and subtle pop. The project has become an undisguised voice for Tahliah Barnett’s perspective, warranting critical acclaim and further opportunity for creative expansion. With the arrival of ‘Figure 8’ - the second track from forthcoming EP ‘Melissa’ - twigs delivers something all divergent yet uncompromisingly commanding.

Following on from the directness of single ‘Glass & Patron’, ‘Figure 8’ is a cryptic, more understated follow-up, moulding the preconceptions of ‘Melissa’ into a somber listen. Replacing the oozing airiness of ‘LP1’ with tormented synthetics, twigs proves she has developed the ability to create monumental music in a deviating way. The track may be short, but twigs’ authoritative voice remains, towering over a brooding blend of fragmented vocal loops, disjointed synth and off-rhythm snares. It’s a sinister undertaking, yet one that remains powerful, twigs ending the track with a demanding refrain of “let me live”. With each new endeavour, FKA twigs becomes a more vital template for challenging musical originality. (Ross Jones)

Thought Tame Impala’s new album ‘Currents’ couldn’t get any more psych-poppy if it tried? That assumption doesn’t account for a force of nature named Haim. Swaggering straight into the heart of ‘’Cause I’m A Man’ with the measured determination of a time-stretched Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen in a wallpaper shop, Haim outfit their reworking like Power Ballad HQ; hairbrush-microphones on hand, and jaunty, muffled chimes at every turn.

The drums bound synthetically with added melodrama, the synths wash, and Haim subtly turn ‘’Cause I’m A Man’ from a tongue-in-cheek song, into a full on ‘See It In A Boy’s Eyes’-level epic that Jamelia herself would be proud of. The only way this could get better? If they’d called it ‘Cause Haim A Man’. (El Hunt)

When Låpsley started out, everything boiled down to a vocal that sounded both light and dark; more than anything, androgynous. Pulling off a post-The Knife technique was enough to turn heads, but since then the Liverpool-bred newcomer has removed herself from being some vocal gymnast. Her vocal remains at the core of every song, but there’s nothing gimmicky or one-trick style about how she executes a verse.

‘Burn’ sees her backflipping, ducking and diving like never before. An effect-free vocal leads the way, but it’s swamped in a high-pitched alter-ego. That’s until the closing minute, which goes deep into the unknown, thumping, drum-and-bass-nodding beats backing up the declaration: “It’s gonna burn if we get closer”. Give or take a year, and Låpsley has firmly defined a style in a way that some artists could take decades mulling over. No fretting, just progression, her future is paved out miles ahead. (Jamie Milton)

Showing their faces amid their extensive US touring plans, it’s the impact of stateside endeavours that form the fabric of Glass Animals’ latest offering. There’s no evidence that the time on the road has got the Oxfordian’s pining for a break though, with the collective energy of their US experience crafted in to the dazzling ‘Gold Lime’.

Tying together Yeah Yeah Yeah’s ‘Gold Lion’ and Erykha Badu’s ‘The Healer’, it’s a fusion that turns each of these originals inside out. With hip-hop samples playing off against Dave Bayley’s undulating vocal, ‘Gold Lime’ turns in to a different beast as it shifts in to a swirling climaxes, marking itself out as one of the most distinctive examples of the bands output. It takes everything from the more adventurous end of the bands repertoire and ups it a level. Karen and Erykha, consider yourselves well and truly Glass Animalsified – this is a band staking their claim at the front of the left-field pop line. (Liam McNeilly)

‘Paul’. Such an innocent name for a song, isn’t it? But the track itself pushes the Girl Band formula through the window and over the edge, falling frantically and a hundred miles an hour and chortling all the way. The Irish four-piece have become renowned for their in-your-face, tour-de-force live shows, and frontman Dara Kiely has evolved into a ferocious beast of a performer over the past few years, with the rest of the band forming a tight-knit relationship that’s asimpenetrable as Fort Knox. Yet how do you capture that magic on record? How do you get down the ear-splitting intensity, and the crushingly kinetic energy? Well, you write ‘Paul’, of course.

‘Paul’ is the culmination of everything that’s made Girl Band brilliant to date, on-stage and off. There’s that spoken-word drawl of Kiely’s, pushed to the front like a late night drunken confrontation. There’s the rising tension of the bass guitar, chopped and skewed and invoking uneasiness. There’s the batshit lyrics - “she’s a gent / give her a call / my daughter Paul”. There’s the yelling; the nightmarish breakdown; the pedal-to-the-metal moments that make your body propel forward outside of its own accord. There are guitars that sound like squeals from the depths of hell. There’s even a children’s pig doing pingers and having a mental breakdown in the video, for crying out loud. ‘Paul’ is an open invitation into a world unlike any other, a world which in Girl Band’s case is going to continually expand to humongous proportions. (Tom Walters)

Hell hath no fury like a garage band scorned. And so The Wytches make their resounding return, ferocity and intensity combined in a track that rages and paces with as much menace as one band can muster. Guitars resound with a jagged edge. Percussion booms, deep and wild. Vocals screech and spit with a savage brutality. Strident chords waver, before descending into a volatile madness.

Dark and deeply scathing, ‘Wasteybois’ sees The Wytches take their sound to new levels of distortion. There’s no telling what’s riled the three-piece up so much, but the consequence is overwhelming. Before the track can tear itself apart completely, the familiar psychedelic tinge the band have always favoured takes a steady hold. Guitars wind and contort, meandering with unwavering threat. An eerie calm and composure echoes with a sense of deep foreboding.
‘Wasteybois’ is a warning, and a primitive statement of vicious intent. With this track, The Wytches have shown just how much chaos they’re capable of causing. All that’s left is the deep seated caution to not get caught in the crossfire. Take heed, gentle listeners, for with music this malignant the consequences of ignorance do not bear thinking about. (Jessica Goodman)

Californians PARTYBABY have everything within their locker to bark out FIDLAR-style YOLO chants, throwing a great big escapist party. They’re built for that stuff. Instead, with their remarkable first move ‘Everything’s All Right’, they get sinister.

“I feel good when you feel bad / I won’t be happy until you’re dead / If you don’t feel like dying, I can wait a long, long, long time,” barks a deathly chorus, splintering out with distorted guitar parts its only backing. Nobody knows who PARTYBABY are at this stage, but they’re clearly a band you wouldn’t want to cross.

Across this three-minute juggernaut, they travel between fluttery piano lines, light acoustics, abrasive pop-punk and unadulterated noise. Within the melee, there’s an answer in there somewhere. Masters of several crafts at once, there’s so much to feast on in the space of one introductory song, you could live off this for years. PARTYBABY are in a completely different league - that much is already clear. (Jamie Milton)

Ben Khan could go one of two ways. A couple of EPs in, and he’s in a comfortable position between all-out pop and dogged experimentalism. Tracks like ‘Youth’ burst apart with new ideas, but at the core is a melody that could be translated towards the charts in a flash.

‘Blade (Tidal Wave of Love)’ might just be an introverted demo, but it gives indication of where Khan can go, more so than the material on this year’s ‘1000’. A dusky mid-Western drawl is somehow placed within icy electronica, synth notes bending out of shape. Barely-there guitar licks by way of Jungle remain, but there’s a bedroom pop quality to this work that might get lost if Khan sets his sights firmly on bigger things. A lesson in why you shouldn’t compromise. (Jamie Milton)

Tags: FKA twigs, Foals, Listen, Features