Futureheads - 'Beginning Of The Twist'
Oh man I LOVE it when a band suddenly become brilliant again, especially when there was never really anything wrong with them in the first place. You know how it goes, you love their stuff, it makes you happy, but suddenly, for no reason you can quite put your finger on, there's a distance between you and them, where you start to take their songs for granted. It can happen when other bands come along who seem a bit fresher, a bit more exciting, and you never fall OUT of love as such, but the urge to put their stuff on your playlist recedes a little. They become a band that reminds you of a certain time in your life, rather than a band you're eager to tell your friends that you're really into.
And so it is with the Futureheads. Their first album was fresh and zingy, their second showed maturity and range, and was muscular and grown-up where the first album was sleek and youthful. Sadly, people really did seem to like that fresh and zingy thing, so it struggled to break any new ground for the band. Then they were dropped by their record label, and then things went a bit quiet...
...now they're back, and they've put the fresh and zingy back into their sound, but kept some of that dark, sleek, muscular backbone. And on the evidence of this song alone, they've gone a bit cryptic with the lyrics where previously they tended to just list things they could (musical pause) SEE! With their eyes. Things-like-that-thing-over...THEEEEEERE. No-not-the-chair-I'm-talking-about-that-thing. Caaan't you seeee it? No? Oh WELL that's the THING I meeeeeaaaaant.
An olden-days Futureheads song called 'The Beginning Of The Twist' would have been about the rock 'n' roll medley the DJ puts on at your cousin's wedding, whereas this one is actually about some kind of stress attack, when everything seems to collapse inwardly. Thankfully, because of the freshness and the zingyness, they managed to make this seem like quite an fun event, rather than a bleak, dramatic one-way ride into the heart of darkness it would be in the hands of, say, 30 Seconds To Mars.
Also, some expressions always work well in songs, especially when they're not over-used - a contrary situation for which you will need to engage your own personal musical taste glands, so you can work out exactly when your delightfully arcane turn of phrase turns into your hackneyed old ninny-baggage.
As things stand right now, I could seriously live with more songs making use of "if memory serves". Art Brut used it to great effect on their song 'Emily Kane', which about pining for your very first girlfriend, some years after you've split up.
Which, coincidentally, is a bit like where we are now with the Futureheads. Other bands have come and gone, and here they are, just the same, only better. It's like the end of some kind of crazy rom-com, only with bands (and an infinitely better soundtrack).
Download: Out now
CD Released: March 10th
(Fraser McAlpine)
PS: Digsy's blog has a heartbreaking account of the love between one man and his Futureheads badge. , but make sure you have some tissues to hand. It's a tear-jerker...
Comments