The Futureheads : 'The Chaos'
Released: 26th April 2010
Label: Nul Records
Sunderland’s own post-punk four-piece The Futureheads seem to have been around forever so it was with mild surprise that I got to review another album; to me they never seemed to quite catch on, despite the fact they’ve got a dozen or more rather brilliant songs to call upon and when I saw them live that number seemed to double. Someone must be buying the records though because here lies a review of ‘The Chaos’, an 11-track album that begins with the title number and a ‘five, four, three, two, one’ countdown, although it must be said the band have formed their own label to release it. As you’d expect by now, the tempo is furious from the off and instantly the impression is this is very much more of the same. Barry Hyde is in typically drawl-some vocal mood and, ever impressively, sounds like he’s from the centre of Sunderland as the opening song begs the question ‘the chaos is everywhere, but what’s it got to do with us?’. As a starting point it’s dramatic enough but at over four minutes long, the second most time-indulgent song on this album, it feels heavy, almost representative of a band trying too hard. Fortunately what follows is exactly what Barry and co are good at – the next two songs are raucous sub-three-minute, high tempo, melody driven songs with razor-sharp, jagged harmonies pulling everything together. ‘Struck Dumb’ starts this section off and gets stronger as it progresses, before ‘Heartbeat Song’ takes things to another level with a beautiful chorus. There’s no doubt this sounds like The Futureheads of old but it’s just as good as the brunt of their previous works, so why not? Stay close to what you know.
Unfortunately ‘Stop The Noise’ isn’t capable of matching it’s predecessor despite the fact that it’s perfectly reasonable album meat, before the rolling-tongue vocal of ‘The Connector’ serves as the sole highlight of what is surely the most disappointing offering on The Chaos; it feels like a song lacking in real fight and there’s no fluency to the melody to patch over other issues, leaving this exposed and there to be shot at – or skipped. The album continues in a similar vein – patches of brilliance, lumps of mundanity and a general lack of fluency. Right in the middle of that is ‘Sun Goes Down’ and it’s hard to separate this and ‘Heartbeat Song’ as the songs that work best on this fast and furious fourth studio album; both are memorably excellent and just what you’d hope for on such a record. Much of the rest of the album, however, lacks clarity and cohesion and seems likely to fail in its quest to take this band further than they’ve already travelled.
The Futureheads are a band I like and admire and there’s little fundamentally wrong with this album. They deserve plaudits for sticking to their strengths and continuing their pursuit of whatever it is they’re chasing and are a band to see live. But The Chaos isn’t as good as the three albums that preceded it and that’s not because they’ve been brave and taken chances, it’s because they’ve just not written songs as good as those already laid out.
5/10
Words: Benjamin Coley
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