Album Review: Foals - Holy Fire

If you heard My Number on the radio a thousand times in the past week, you should be forgiven for approaching Holy Fire, the third studio full-length from Oxford-based dancy math-pop quintet Foals, with a degree of trepidation. After all – and this may fly in the face of instincts aroused by its undeniably contagious vibe – it's a terrible song. Or, rather, it is a terrible Foals song. Repetitive, flat and frustrating in its aimlessness, it lacks the precise, intricate guitar juxtapositions, the dynamics and the sense of fun that drives so much of the band's earlier work.

“But, jerk,” you're saying, “Foals songs have always been kind of repetitive.” Well, shut up, but that's true. But there's always been a purpose personified in an exploding crescendo or a groove change or a reckless and free conclusion. There are still those elements present on Holy Fire, undoubtedly. In fact, Prelude, the four-minute instrumental opener, gets hopes up early with its burst-and-bloom build and fall, its reverb-soaked guitar waves and lofty yet obscured vocals. In kind, Inhaler keeps spirits lifted, even if it sounds like Foals are simultaneously trying to channel QOTSA's Make It Wit Chu and every Deftones chorus ever.

Then My Number smacks you with its limp-wristed mediocrity, the spectre of which never really leaves thereafter. The pizzicato arpeggios and bowed instrumental dramatics of Milk & Black Spiders and the spasmodic irreverence of Providence somewhat make up for it and much of the album, but they are two strong tracks buried too far in to have a meaningful impact. All up, Holy Fire is not bad, but it isn't great, either: it's the Coke Zero of musical evolution.