★★★★★
The band are set to release their fourth long player, 'What Went Down', on 28 Aug, and have just shunted out the second track from it, 'Mountain At My Gates' (following on from the title track last month). It marks, it seems, another progression in the Foals sound, taking a more simplistic approach to songwriting and giving themselves a bit more room to move around in. But it's still distinctly recognisable, from the guitar sound down to the cracks in Yannis Philippakis' voice...
- www.completemusicupdate.com
2015-07-21
★★★★★
[Brian Shultz is the longest-tenured reviews editor in Punknews.org history (2004-2011).]
- www.punknews.org
2013-12-27
★★★★★
It seemed as though Surfer Blood had just kicked off their opening set on this bill when a friend and I walked into The Met in Pawtucket, RI, on a typically overcast night in this city neighbor to the state capital. It seemed like Foals had booked dates in Boston and Providence (-ish) on this tour strictly because hey, they do have a song named after the latter. The 600-cap room wasn't even really half-full-I'd say there was roughly 200 to 250 people present...
- www.punknews.org
2013-05-15
★★★★★
February 25, 2013
On their 2008 debut, this Oxford, England, quintet recorded with TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek and came up with an album of frenetic, glitched-out Brit pop. Two records later they're still expanding and ironing out that sound. Yannis Philippakis sounds like the Anglo-cized version of My Morning Jacket's Jim James as he sets his echo-laden yelp over burbling Talking Heads grooves and plasticine art-rock textures...
- www.rollingstone.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
It's hard not to feel sorry for Foals. The precociously talented quintet from Oxford had a difficult challenge in answering their third album quandary. How to follow up a fabulous Mercury-nominated second album that, in 'Spanish Sahara', boasted the best composition to come out this decade so far?
The band plumped for producers Flood and Alan Moulder to help with some answers. First single 'Inhaler' surprised everyone - here was a band wearing a heavier, buzzy, funk-rock sound...
- www.clashmusic.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
MUSIC ALBUM REVIEW
FoalsHoly Fire***
by Jesse Cataldo on February 10, 2013Jump to Comments (0) or Add Your Own
Foals' 2010 album, Total Life Forever, was a gorgeous bit of marine-themed pop, taking as much inspiration from the placid rhythms of the sea as the lean post-punk that informed the band's previous work...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Most hip new bands save their experimental, reactionary "fuck you" album for when they have something to rebel against. Foals got theirs out of the way early: 2008's Antidotes was a detached, often robotic stew of math-rock rhythms and Afrobeat electric guitar pointillism, with Yannis Philippakis snarling detached art-school nonsense in the crevices...
- thephoenix.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
When a band releases a single ahead of an anticipated album, it should clue you in on what that album will sound like or at least work as an introduction. When Foals released the propulsive "Inhaler" at the tail end of 2012, it sounded alien for the five-some...
- www.cmj.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Is it pop or is it art? May Foals never be forced to decide.
A brainy indie-dance act who get hired to please the Ibiza Rocks hedonists, the Oxford band are somehow having it both ways. Third album Holy Fire is defined by its lithe, slinky guitars, its twinkling, quicksilver keys, and its accessible Flood/Moulder production. If this isn't Foals' pop classic or their art masterpiece, they're having a huge amount of fun squaring that circle.
- www.independent.co.uk
2013-04-01
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