Foals
What Went Down

THE REVIEW

Well, yes. I am among those who were a bit taken aback by the stylistic change of these eccentric folks from Oxford, UK known as Foals.

With Antidotes, it was love at first listen. Indie rock and math rock in a danceable embrace, devoted to people like Battles and Talking Heads: I liked it instantly! A mix of energy, musical ramblings, and a certain garage-band nastiness.

Then... Then there was the turn.

Don’t get me wrong, the writer greatly appreciated albums like Total Life Forever and Holy Fire, even though all that mix that had been the fortune of these guys had almost completely disappeared. The music was still of quality, standardized quality, less schizophrenic and lively like at the beginning, but always and undeniably of quality. It's not for everyone, in fact, to show compositional maturity and the courage to dare within 2/3 albums, especially in a genre saturated with clone bands like indie rock.

With this necessary premise, I want to get straight to the point: What Went Down is an excellent modern rock album, played as it should be and arranged excellently. It's as if, after the carefree and entertaining debut, with What Went Down, a trilogy of albums with a mature and complete sound is completed, drawing influences from alternative rock, pop, and electronics, resulting in an elegant, composed, and considered work. There are no technicalities, no great innovation. But there is a lot, a great deal of sharp and abrasive rock, that plays with melody and keyboards, transforming into everything this small great band has to offer.

From the first listens, you can perceive the capabilities of the English sextet, especially the frontman Yannis Philippakis, never so decisive and direct in his singing before, capable of combining more anguished verses with others more sighing and reasoned.

If, in addition to the notable performance of the frontman, we add a dear dose of dreamy psychedelia, which permeates (without suffocating, quite the opposite) the overall atmosphere of the album, we know we have in our hands an intelligent work, full of creativity and capable of sticking to our stereo players for hours and hours of listening.

From car trips to headphone listening, What Went Down teems with harmonies and substantial guitars, alt-rock aggression, and pop melancholy. Elements that reach their peak in tracks like "Mountain at My Gates," "A Knife In The Ocean," "London Thunder," or in the extraordinary "Albatross," a true and extraordinary emotional crescendo, and that make the album varied and diverse, satisfying both for nostalgics and the insatiable ones.

Greetings to the readers of Debaser!