Harry Guerin puts his fanboy feelings to one side while listening to the Oxford outfit's fourth opus.
Following the can-do-no-wrong narrative built up across their previous three gems, What Went Down should not only be the biggest record of Foals' career to date, but also the strongest. And certainly, its opening troika - the call-to-mosh title track, the muscly shuffle of Mountain at My Gates and Birch Tree's Eighties chart nostalgia - suggest that everything is as it should be. But thereafter, those highs are never reached again, with the album title taking on a different connotation.
The remaining seven songs here are far from write-offs or monuments to self-indulgence, but they either take too long to register or feel like they're covering overly-familiar territory, even with frontman Yannis Philippakis' most accomplished vocal performance. Ironically, all of them sound like they will fare better in the live arena, where the dynamic of the shared experience, and the opportunities for Philippakis' time-honoured walkabouts, can offer a greater sense of urgency.
Right now, repeated listens lead to the same conclusion: that with just two-and-a-half years separating What Went Down from 2013's Holy Fire and its exhausting tour, Foals went back into the studio too soon after being on the road.
That's one they'll have plenty of time to ponder backstage in the stadiums that await.
3/5
Tracklisting: What Went Down - Mountain at My Gates - Birch Tree - Give It All - Albatross - Snake Oil - Night Swimmers - London Thunder - Lonely Hunter - A Knife in the Ocean
