Foals: Life Is Yours (Vinyl)

After Foals released their two albums “Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1” and “Part 2” in 2019, which reached number two and one in the UK, the next album of the indie and math rock band from Oxford comes in 2022.

“Life Is Yours” is the band’s seventh long player, but the first as a trio, consisting of Yannis Philippakis (vocals, guitar), Jack Bevan (drums) and Jimmy Smith (guitar, keyboard). Keyboardist and saxophonist Edwin Congreave had left the group in 2021, bassist Walter Gervers already in 2018.

The ten new songs were written during Lockdown’s winter of 2020. No wonder that many of them have escapist features. Finally, the new album was recorded with producers A. K. Paul, Dan Carey (Tame Impala, Fontaines D.C.) and John Hill (Portugal. The Man, Florence & The Machine, Cage The Elephant) at Speedy Wunderground (London) and Real World Studios (Bath).

Already last year, the first foretaste of the new record was released with “Wake Me Up”. With “2am” the second single followed in February 2022. Frontman Yannis Philippakis about the song “Musically, ‘2am’ is one of the poppiest songs we’ve ever written. It’s about repetitive cycles of destructive behavior that a lot of people can relate to, and it’s certainly an expression of something I struggle with. There’s something cathartic about expressing that feeling in this upbeat music that conveys a sense of release and hope for resolution.” “Wake Me Up,” on the other hand, represents more of a return to Foals’ beginnings, which Philippakis described as, “We’ve been on quite a journey as a band, experimenting with a wide variety of sonic palettes. This time we all felt the desire to return to our original approaches, where the rhythm, grooves and guitars intertwine architecturally. We wanted to feel the physicality of the music. And we wanted it to feel good.”

Tracklist

1. Life is yours
2. Wake me up
3. 2am
4. 2001
5. (summer sky)
6. Flutter
7. Looking high
8. Under the radar
9. Crest of the wave
10. The sound
11. Wild green