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album reviews

The Futureheads



The Futureheads 7½ ( 2004 )
Le Garage / Robot / A To B / Decent Days And Nights / Meantime / Alms / Danger Of The Water / Carnival Kids / The City Is Here For You To Use / First Day / He Knows / Stupid And Shallo / Trying Not To Think About Time / Hounds Of Love / Man Ray

Put Franz Ferdinand, The Jam and early XTC into a blender, take out the contents. Place the contents into a snazzy looking beaker with stripes down the side and leave to rest. Empty contents into a venue near Sunderland and you have The Futureheads. So, another post-punk New Wave type of outfit, yet Futureheads have an intelligence burning underneath their songs. It seems that the barest of ideas have been honed cleverly into a melting pot and out comes fine, brief and energetic angular guitar pop. Pop rather than rock and there's a key difference with The Futureheads. To my mind, they're a pop band rather than a rock group. Sure, they create a racket, but it's always melodic and it's always controlled. They're a band with actual backing vocals and could probably enter a barbershop quartet competition and not do too badly. Well, it helps them do the 'oooh, ah, ohhh' bits required in their cover of Kate Bush's 'Hounds Of Love'. Listen to the beginning of 'Danger Of The Water' and learn the guys can sing quite well when they put their minds to it. Not something you can say about every band of this type. Futureheads you see don't hide behind the noise they create. The songs are thrust in full view, naked for the world to see. There's no distortion, their guitar lines are very clean. Well, 'Danger Of The Water' is entirely vocal, no instruments at all. The melody is there and I like this. It's a shame the album is slightly one dimensional apart from 'Danger Of The Water' and the spirited version of 'Hounds Of Love'. Still, 'Decent Days And Nights' and 'Meantime' are both so good they could be on XTC's 'Drums And Wires' and you'd say they would be worthy to be on that album.

Highlights apart from the aforementioned? 'First Day' is wonderful with 'aaahhhh' vocal segments and a stop/start nature without the stops. The song speeds up towards a gloriously controlled noisy ending. 'A To B' is fairly anthemic and opener 'La Garage' immensely addictive. What else can I say? Well, not a lot. The first Jam album was one-dimensional and they went onto become one of the most beloved groups in British history, can the same happen to The Futureheads? Well, next time around I suspect we'll already be looking to another band, such is the fickle fate of new bands these days. So, for the record this album is short enough to be addictive for brief periods of time without ever out-staying it's welcome.

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