Future Of The Left
The Plot Against Common Sense
Reviewed on 4 July 2012
Rated 6.5 out of 10
Key Track: Key Track: Notes On Achieving Orbit
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With the London Olympics bearing down on us, the time is right for a new album from Future of the Left, Andy Falkous’ disenfranchised, fiercely anti-establishment (and Welsh) rock juggernaut.
The Plot Against Common Sense is a more measured affair than 2009′s unhinged landmark Travels with Myself and Another, and Future of the Left are still more ambitious than the majority of hard rock bands, but when they trade off their immediacy for tempo, the results sometimes miss the mark – at least musically.
Opener “Sheena Is A T-Shirt Salesman” storms out of the gates, cramming three songs into one and using Falkous’ unmistakable guttural scream as the centrepiece. Meanwhile, “Sorry Dad, I Was Late For The Riots” is the band’s poppiest track to date, sounding like an old Television jam with sneering first-person lyrics ridiculing London’s upper class.
To the extent that the band has always used pop culture references to allude to more insidious problems, the jab of “Robocop 4 – Fuck off Robocop” at Hollywood movie sequels seems a little obvious and the song just isn’t memorable enough to make it stick. Elsewhere, like on “I Am The Least Of Your Problems,” the band’s fuzzed-out sound resembles Josh Homme’s Queens of the Stone Age.
Nevertheless, with Future of the Left (and a fifty minute, fifteen track length) you always know you’re in for plenty of content. Lyrically, Falkous is as strong as ever, but unlike the relentless energy crammed into Travels with Myself and Another, not all of it is as arresting. The degree to which you invest in the rhetoric will probably determine your enjoyment of The Plot Against Common Sense.
- Darren Gubbins
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