Future Of The Left - How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident (Album Review)
Friday, 18 October 2013
Written by Ben Bland
If you’re a Future of the Left fan, then you won’t have been able to suppress a big fat grin when you heard of the band’s recent successful PledgeMusic campaign. After all, it’s doubtful that there is there another band in Britain so deserving as this Cardiff-based troupe, whose leader, Andrew Falkous, has been fighting to pump out the very best in discontented, tongue-in-cheek noise rock, with little reward, for well over a decade now.
For devotees of Falkous and company (now the settled line-up of drummer Jack Egglestone, bassist Julia Ruzicka and second guitarist Jimmy Watkins), ‘How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident’ will be a joyous listen. It’s a record that balances the long-term musical aesthetic of the group with a new tangent of exploration. For the first time we have a Future of the Left record that includes a series of ballad-paced tracks, something that suits the band surprisingly well.
Not that you would have guessed that from the album’s opening punches. Bread, Cheese, Bow and Arrow kicks things off with the band in a traditionally angry frame of mind, going straight for the gut rather than for the head or the heart.
Johnny Borrell Afterlife, meanwhile, is the sort of off-kilter, Fall-esque guitar rocker that Future of the Left have been doing better than Mark E. Smith’s bunch for years now. Add in the fact that Future Child Embarrassment Matrix is probably the heaviest thing the band have done to date, and that Singing of the Bonesaws is possibly the weirdest, and you already have the most varied Future of the Left album.
Then French Lessons turns up. Sonically it’s the closest thing to a sweet love song we will probably ever hear from the band, although the lyrical content is typically enigmatic: “I’m reading you like a pamphlet, that I picked up from an idiot on a unicycle in a town square. He is sad now, he was sadder then.” Not only is it something of a stylistic left-turn, it’s also one of the most naggingly appealing songs Falkous has written.
The same is true of Something Happened, an acoustic guitar-led number that features some of the most downright bizarre lyrics anyone has ever written... yes, ever... yes, anywhere. It also happens to be utterly brilliant and acts as evidence that here we have a band that’s capable of so much more than just three-minute scuzzy rock outs. In fact, by the time another acoustic-led tune, Why Aren’t I Going to Hell, rounds the album out on a quasi-Cave/Waits note, you will be impatient for the day that Future of the Left announce their plans to single-handedly resurrect MTV Unplugged.
In all seriousness though, these quieter moments make such an impact on the listener that they rob a little of the pleasure from the standardised Future of the Left songs, such as Donny of the Decks and She Gets Passed Around at Parties. There’s nothing bad here but, partially because the synth that permeated so much of ‘The Plot Against Common Sense’ last year seems to have been gracefully retired (or maybe it’s just broken again), the heavier tracks start to run into one another ever so slightly towards the end of the record.
Such a complaint is a minor one though and the good news is that a further EP, ‘Human Death’, is coming in to land any day now as well, just in case the 14 tracks on ‘How to Stop Your Brain In An Accident’ aren’t quite enough to sate your desire for Future of the Left’s distinctive work. This is a band on top form as always, and it’s a pleasure to have them (hopefully) on the road to wider success and free of the record label problems of the past. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - the best rock band in Britain.
Fri November 1st 2013 - LEEDS Belgrave Music Hall
Sat November 2nd 2013 - GLASGOW Broadcast
Sun November 3rd 2013 - NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Cluny
Tue November 5th 2013 - SHEFFIELD Queens Social Club
Wed November 6th 2013 - LIVERPOOL East Village Arts Club
Thu November 7th 2013 - MANCHESTER Gorilla
Fri November 8th 2013 - NOTTINGHAM Bodega Social
Sat November 9th 2013 - BIRMINGHAM Temple, The Institute
Tue November 12th 2013 - BRIGHTON Haunt
Wed November 13th 2013 - LONDON Heaven, Under the Arches
Thu November 14th 2013 - BOURNEMOUTH Sixty Million Postcards
Fri November 15th 2013 - BRISTOL Thekla
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