Foals - Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost: Part 2

The Guardian 100

(Transgressive/Warner)

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.

Songs like the honking, stamping Black Bull and The Runner unleash controlled, savage elemental fury with more feral riffs and lung-bleeder vocals than ever. But it’s the knockout closing pair that illuminate the band’s mastery of dynamics, unbearabletension and cathartic release. Into the Surf is a wondrous departure, an eerie, psychy yearn for burial at sea (“and if I don’t make it home/ wrap the jasmine round my bones”). Finally, the sinuous Neptune muses cryptically on mortality over 10 thunderous minutes – the sound of one of the best bands of their generation leaving the rest behind.