Total Life Forever hits the perfect blend of spacey math-rock guitar lines, catchy vocal melodies, and drum/bass grooves that sound like they’re pulled straight out of a trendy London nightclub at 2am. It’s as good as it was when it dropped in 2010.
Keyboardist Edwin Congreve, bassist Walter Gervers and drummer Jack Bevan are incredibly tight throughout the album, laying a pulsing foundation for guitarists Yannis Philippakis and Jimmy Smith to throw down hook-laden guitar licks that float in reverb and delay. The production here is also stellar— atmospheric synths and pops of noise are panned from left to right, giving the music a feeling of width that carries you into the next section like a soft-breaking wave. On top of it all, Phillippakis delivers repetitively melodic vocal lines that beg to be chanted along with.
What Foals does especially well throughout the entirety of Total Life Forever is give the listener a sense of purposeful direction— each section a step forward, each lyric an intimate feeling. Every song feels like a vignette of an internal journey through life and loss and triumph, leading you towards the inevitable destination of acceptance that awaits.
“Spanish Sahara” is a perfect example of this journey. When the crescendo hits at 4:15 you feel like you’ve travelled through fog and rain, reaching a summit where the light cuts through the clouds.
Standout Songs: “Spanish Sahara”, “Miami”, “Black Gold”, “What Remains”
Matthew. 