Yannis Philippakis
(Picture: Redferns)With their 2019 two-part album Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Oxford-formed Foals were at their most menacing yet, beckoning in the impending apocalypse with a nihilistic smirk, and letting the haunting empty space at the heart of stand-out moments like Neptune whip up into a cacophonous scream. Then, as we all know too well, the world took a dark turn into prolonged isolation, while gig venues were bolted shut for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, Yannis Philippakis and band – now a three-piece after the departure of keyboardist Edwin Congreave – opted to ditch the doom.
Out next month, Foals’ seventh album Life Is Yours embraces brighter climes; or, as their frontman put it speaking to NME, the idea of “music that would be a forcefield against the darkness” instead. As the jangling, fidgeting guitar lines of that album’s lead single Wake Me Up burst into life at Brixton Academy, pops of cyan and yellow pasted across an imposing light-bar made way for vivid pink flowers while the band showcased their danciest leanings yet. An airing of unreleased new album cut 2001 was powered by an infectious nu-disco strut, yearning for togetherness again. “I’m living all day inside,” Philippakis sang, “waiting for the summer sky.”
