Foals launch new double-album with first song in four years, Exits

Header image by Alex Knowles.

It's nice to have Foals back. The UK indie-pop favourites are somewhat Australian heroes, selling out headline shows every visit, topping festival lineups (Big Day Out (RIP), Falls Festival and most recently, DJing at Beyond The Valley/Lost Paradise), and bridging that gap between commercial success and cult alternative favourites with every album. Ever since 2010's breakout second album Total Life Forever the band have been unstoppable; their 2013 Holy Fire record strengthening their catchy, advert-friendly indie-pop, while their most recent record - 2015's What Went Down - offered versatility and experimentalism that shaded their signature sound with forward-thinking moments worth celebrating. They've been reasonably quiet in the four years since, but it turns out there's a good reason for it, that reason being not one, but TWO albums arriving this year.

Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost is the UK band's return to glory, spreading four years of studio work across two records to be released this year - the first part out March 8th, the second out in Spring - designed to be "be listened to and appreciated individually" but "fundamentally, they are companion pieces," according to the famed frontman, Yannis Philippakis. Exits is the first taste of the album's first part and it's a bold and left-field taste of a band constantly evolving and refining their sound, combining punchy and accessible vocals with a long-winding instrumental that's built upon their signature guitar riffs and playful percussion layers, gradually growing and layering as it draws longer and longer. "There's a definite idea about the world being no longer habitable in the way that it was," Yannis explains on the single, which sorta asks more questions than it answers in a way. "A kind of perilousness lack of predictability and a feeling of being overwhelmed by the magnitudes of the problems we face. What's the response? And what’s the purpose of any response that one individual can have?"

Pre-order Part 1 of the record HERE, watch the clip to Exits below, and let's cross our fingers at a Splendour/Falls appearance this coming festival season.

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