FOALS - Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost: Part 2 LP

Label: Warner

Described by the band as “two halves of the same locket”, Foals’ ambitious ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost’ project could well have set the band up for a fall into self-indulgence or spread themselves far too thin in making two half-decent albums rather than one definitive record. Foals singer Yannis Philippakis’s declaration that this music “exists in the wreckage” of its sister album, Part 1, is pretty melodramatic, but psychological, political and environmental crisis is this project’s keynote, and recent or impending death hangs over it.

Still, Part 1’s bucking defiance in the shadow of doom survives as the band reprise all the best bits of their 15-year journey – metallic rock, highlife funk, indie bangers and emo introspection – and somehow wrap them into a consistent, convincing whole. Not only a fittingly accomplished conclusion to their most adventurous and masterful project to date, ‘Part 2’ is also a thoroughbred belter of a record and utterly complete album in its own right. Add it all up and the ‘Everything Not Lost’ era is testament to all that Foals are capable of – in sound, in scope and in greatness.