Future Of The Left - The Plot Against Common Sense

Future of the Left - Sheena is a T-shirt Salesman

Runs for: 2:07

The album's opener and one of it's better songs. Too bad it goes downhill after that.

So I run down to my usual record store the other day, checking the shelves as I do when I'm killing time in the city. I find Future of the Left's newest album, which I think would be a good purchase, due to the quality of the previous releases the band's front man has been involved with. However, I listen to it and I've got something figured out. The band’s frontman, Howling Welshman Andy Falkous’ had this brilliant epiphany: ‘Hey, we’ve already created the best rock album ever, so let’s go ahead and create an experimental rock album wooooooooohhhh!!!’.

Yeah alright, there’s a lot of tracks on this album compared to those earlier releases - and that turns out to be a giant fucking blight on it as a whole. Their previous album, ‘Travels With Myself And Another’ pushed some boundaries is what rock should be about (Inform Chad Kroger of this, or shoot him if you’d prefer). You could listen to that album from first to last and love the shit out of it, and I guess I was a bit naive to purchase The Plot Against Common Sense with the same expectations.

Now the thing I loved about Travels was that even if the song started off a bit shit, you know, left you asking ‘Why the fuck would you open a song like that?’ There’d be something to bring it back into place, and then far beyond said place transforming the song into the best thing ever. Typically the hooks would be thunderous, borderline heavy metal bass tone coupled with Falkous’ wickedly constructed guitar work over the chorus while he'd be using what can only be described as the lyrical and vocal style of a mental patient. The drums brang it all together with rock-y or sometimes snappy input.

Now while Plot opens well with ‘Sheena was a T-shirt salesman’ (the song’s got a catchy riff and a good ‘fuck you’ message to merchandisers in the music industry) it’ll take you up to about 6 or more tracks past that to get something good. The songs start shit, and stay that way. I shouldn’t have to wait that long on an album for a good song to pop up. To paraphrase the lyrics Falkous sang in ‘Day Of The Deadringers’ - back in his days playing in McLusky - in the midst of all the touching and the kissing he's forgot the penetration. There's nothing here that gets the listener going.

Falkous has opted to use a weak, monotonous singing style for a couple of tracks and that shits me to no end. He knows how to inflect, he knows how to scream like a demon, yet for some reason he decides to go on like a disinterested call centre worker who's tone comes as a result of his balls getting pinched in his pants. A fucking mystery indeed. A lot of the tracks are pretty monotonous too. No thunderous bass, no innovative chorus, just… quiet. Nothing.

There is some good on the album though. ‘Robocop 4 – Fuck off Robocop’ is a pretty interesting song. It’s a bit experimental, but it raises a pretty decent point about the state of the movie industry and some of the shit that it churns out for the sake of self perpetuation. However it's nothing new (see: Lapsed Catholics from Travels)  From that point on the album tries to pick up – ‘I Am The Least Of Your Problems’ rolls with a catchy drum roll, well delivered lyrics and the thunderous bass the album so rightly needs, but doesn’t really make up for that wanting void of boring songs through the middle.

I guess that means there’s about 3 or 4 songs worth listening to on the album, which puts a band which is capable of such innovation on the same pedestal as your run of the mill indie radio rockers. I’m actually a bit gutted. It’s kind of like they finished it and just said ‘fuck it, it’ll do’.

By the time you finish listening to Anchor you figure out the problem with the album. The songs don’t pick up, ever. They just play the same boring goddamn riff over without giving you a big finish, any hooks, anything.  I listen to rock for a fucking dynamic, and instead I’ve been given the musical equivalent of a Alzheimer’s patient, rambling the same incoherent thing over and over, all the while depressing and immobile.

Maybe this album will take a while for me to get into. I mean, their first album, Curses, took me a bit to understand. Hell even Falkous’ first band McLusky took me a bit to understand – but after two listens I got it. I’ve listened to Plot twice and I’m pretty sure for the most part, it’s objectively shit. Only time will tell, I suppose.

I’ll probably end up doing a Travels With Myself and Another review just to counteract that. Seriously, you can get it from Landspeed for $15 bucks and it’s fantastic, literally the best thing to come out of the UK before those Kate Middleton nudes surfaced (or rather how pissed off the royal family got). You’ll hear how good it is and you’ll see why I’m so butt flustered with how Plot turned out.

I’ll put forward my favourite track from that, I’m planning on doing a McLusky review too. Falkous has been at the head of a couple of brilliant albums over the past 10-15 years and this album being a letdown is no reason to dismiss his earlier involvements at all.

Reccomended for: People who wouldn’t mind getting The Hives,  The Arctic Monkeys and Queens Of The Stone Age together to make a supergroup. Only they’re on crack. And you have to deal with both the highs and the lows. Also, punks and people who have an itch for distorted bass driven madness.

Future of the Left -  Arming Eritrea

Runs for: 2:57

One of the tracks from Travels With Myself And Another. 

Bass driven furious goodness. 

When i got my mits on this album, I played this song twice a day for about a week and a half. 

I *NEVER* do that.

Future of the Left - Throwing Bricks at Trains

Runs for: 2:36

Another track from 'Travels'.

I feel my review here has only got their louder songs. 

This is catchy as sin and is pretty easy on the ears. Highly recommend it to all.  

 

Future of the Left - I Am the Least of Your Problems.

Runs for: 2:31

One of the other half decent tracks off 'The Plot'. 

Let this in no way be an indicator of the quality of the rest of that album.