Holy Fire
There's an added element of showmanship to the Oxford band's third album that establishes it as a point of no return. It's easy to hear Holy Fire as a more muscular complement to Wild Beasts, though its overt commercial appeal aligns Foals with the Cure in stadium mode.
The most exciting thing about Foals’ sophomore effort, 2010’s Total Life Forever, was how thoroughly the British act’s ambitious post-rock arrangements exceeded the expectations set by the relatively pedestrian dance-punk of its predecessor, Antidotes. With Holy Fire, the Oxford band struggles with the inevitable…
Holy Fire is Foals' masterpiece because it ties in the rhythmic nature of their debut, the soul of the second album, producing finally the rhythmic soul of its own.
With Antidotes, their 2008 debut, Oxford quintet Foals announced that yes, here they were, another one of those distinctively British indie bands, the kind that specialize in high-energy, thick-accented dance punk (see: Bloc Party).
Otherwise Holy Fire is a collection of well-manicured tracks zoning out to a dazzling middle distance.
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With Total Life Forever, Foals rejected genre associations like nu-rave and dance-punk by upping the emotional stakes and working ambiance into their blueprint. The general consensus was an old cliché, but it was true nonetheless: they had matured and grown as a band. Nearly three years in the making, this follow-up doesn't present audiences with the same kind of leap; it's more a nuanced sharpening of their abilities.
Holy Fire opens with a sense of gravity. A low buzz and a pattering in the distance draft images of cavernous space before the guitar even shimmers into existence. And then it builds, each new instrument stoking the fire.
ClashMusic: Read a review of the third album 'Holy Fire' from Foals featuring the singles 'Inhaler' and 'My Number'. Released on Warners on 11th February 2013.
Foals are a band who want stadium-filling success, and this album might just give it to them, writes <strong>Michael Hann</strong>
[xrr rating=3.25/5]Born out of the mid-2000s’ renewed interest in math rock (and with a roster populated by three former members of notable disbanded math rock group the Edmund Fitzgerald), Foals has kept to the fringe of that subgenre.
The opening moments of Holy Fire are nothing like those of Foals’ earlier works. The febrile swagger remains, but within is something much darker, tenser, and unsettling. Its as if “Prelude” is trying to erase Total Life Forever from your memory. As Holy Fire progresses however, its predecessor begins to feel less like an artifact