The Futureheads Album: “Chaos”

This is the Futureheads fourth album. If you liked the previous 3 then you'll definitely like this one. It's not quite a return to the 'angular pop' that worked so effectively on the first album but instead represents a natural maturation in their song writing ability. Consequently, this work contains some of their strongest material yet.

Note that there is a hidden track after 'Jupiter' and that there is another album version out there (see HMV) that contains 2 additional tracks. and Youth is also once again at the controls on this CD. Buy this album and then look forward to the next one.

This is a super tight record. I think the hooks and the riffs WAY better than their first record. The Chaos is more immediate, excited, and charged. It also sounds great. Which is always nice.

Yes, I'm such a fan of the band I could not wait until June 1st when "The Chaos" is released domestically in the U.S. Instead, I quickly ordered the import.

I've been buying and listening to the band's music since their 2004 eponymous debut. This time around the lads deliver an 11 track (plus 1 hidden track) tour-de-force. This band has so much energy, it makes for a great listen on the way to work in the morning and on the way home in the evening.

As with each Futureheads release, there are a few questionable tracks such as "This Is The Life" and "The Baron", and maybe even the title track, but these are small quibbles. The whole of the album is a rush of adrenaline. Of course the best tracks are "Struck Dumb", "Heartbeat Song", "I Can Do That". They could all be alternative radio hits. The band pushes the envelop slightly with "Jupiter" and the acapella hidden track that follows it. This is great, a band willing to take some chances creatively.

Sadly, The Futureheads are still relatively unknown in the U.S. But that's fine by me. I like having low profile excellent bands in my collection to introduce the uninitiated to.

Here's how "The Chaos" compares to other Futureheads releases:

2004 The Futureheads: Three and a Half Stars

2006 News & Tributes: Three Stars

2008 This Is Not The World: Four Stars

2010 The Chaos: Four Stars

Sometimes you fall in love with something so fast and so hard that you become willing to forgive and forget even the harshest of transgressions. You get a glimpse of something true, something good, and you practically beg for more, oblivious to the fact that what was once the norm is now the exception. Relationships like this generally tend to self-destruct within a few years, but I still haven't come to my senses when it comes to Sunderland, England foursome the Futureheads. Their 2004 self-titled debut was such a tasty slab of post-punk, that year's rage, done so right that it was nearly impossible not to pogo along with. It was all sharp guitar angles, frantic stop-start rhythms, and irrepressibly poppy four-party harmony sung in those thick accents, heavy debts to XTC and Wire notwithstanding. Then came 2006's disappointing, down tempo News and Tributes, then the bland, straightforward power-pop of This Is Not The World, and I was always about ready to call it quits, but there would be that one or two couple songs that harkened back to what this band could be capable of.

Alas, I must love abusive relationships, because The Chaos, while a definite upgrade from their previous efforts, still finds the band seemingly stuck on autopilot. It does find them happily return to their herky-jerky roots, where a song is more likely to come to a rapid full stop then all of a sudden burst into a punk singalong rather than flow along on vanilla power chords and routine drumming. It's just that bright ray of hope that will no doubt have me purchasing whatever they release next, the promise of more songs like the brilliant thunder of the title track or the jagged pop glory of lead single "Struck Dumb." Indeed, The Chaos contains more than its fair share of tunes that would have stood up well on their debut, and some, like the pile driving ADD rhythm of standout "The Collector" or the spacey, spiraling guitar work on "Jupiter," that surpass it. Even a fairly by-the-numbers cry for radio play like "Heartbeat Song" succeeds on a sugary melody and singer Barry Hyde's distinctive staccato yelp.

But whereas The Futureheads took post-punk in strange and new directions that left you disoriented as often as they exhilarated, The Chaos seems content to beat the standard formula to death on too many songs. "This is the Life" is all happy-go-lucky guitar bursts and machine-gun drumming with a change-of-pace chorus and gang vocals, but after the similar structures of "I Can Do That" and "Stop the Noise," it's more than a little predictable. It's not that the songs are bad, or that the band is lacking energy (something that seemed definitely possible on their last two records); it's that, frankly, the melodies and hooks just aren't there. The Futureheads' great secret wasn't that the band could do a damn good XTC impression; it was that the songwriting was innovative, impressive, and most important of all, engaging. Their well-defined sense of fun is here, without a doubt, and the energy is at a high since their debut, but it just lacks that extra oomph, that bit of melodic weirdness and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants fearlessness that used to make the Futureheads such a unique face in the post-punk revival. But it's still a much better record than I would have expected given their past directions, and the sly bastards remembered to throw in just enough tunes to keep me a believer, at least for another couple of years. I'll always have my "Hounds of Love" cover to go crying back to when they hurt my feelings.