Release Date: Nov 22, 2011
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Inertia (IE)
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Future of the Left’s last album Travels With Myself and Another startled those of a janglier disposition by highlighting with clean strokes something that had previously been lost in the racket, namely that Andy Falkous is as good a lyricist as British music possesses. He has an unholy skill for injecting icy chill into a desensitised mind, while shining bleak light on the darkest parts of a person’s soul. He tinges misanthropy with the arch assault of a crippling sense of humour.
Despite their name, Future of the Left aren't caught up in politics, but it would be nice if they were. Triangulating toxic levels of intelligence, humor, and aggressiveness, they're exactly the kind of band who could be speaking truth to power. But, for the most part, Andy Falkous forgoes highfalutin political statements and just tells it like it is to us regular schmoes, at the risk of sounding like a jerk.
New line-up, new label – but FOTL deliver familiar quality on this new EP. Noel Gardner 2011 A six-track EP preceding an album due in early 2012, Polymers Are Forever is the first new material in over two years by brash, comedic Welsh rock quartet Future of the Left. This stretch has been forced upon them somewhat by label and line-up issues. They parted ways last year with 4AD, and have eventually been given shelter by Xtra Mile – once the home of Frank Turner’s Million Dead, who featured Julia Ruzicka, the newest FOTL member.
I once saw Future Of The Left play a drizzly afternoon slot in Belfast city centre, to the casual indifference of some Mogwai fans, a sleeping vagrant, and a man who I suspected was lost. Surveying the miserable turnout, Andy Falkous wheezed from the side of his mouth and declared: "In the words of ….
I once saw Future Of The Left play a drizzly afternoon slot in Belfast city centre, to the casual indifference of some Mogwai fans, a sleeping vagrant, and a man who I suspected was lost. Surveying the miserable turnout, Andy Falkous wheezed from the side of his mouth and declared: "In the words of the great Bill Hicks, I've fucked more people than this." Like all the best punks, Andy 'Falko' Falkous has a keen eye for absurdity. Indeed, his music is teeming with it.
2010 found Welsh wiseguys Future Of The Left dealing with label migration and personnel shifts. Fortunately, this machine ain’t broke: The mini-LP Polymers Are Forever doesn’t stray too far from the Lefties’ unique suffix rock (surrealist, situationist, absurdist), powered by frontman Andy Falkous’ penchant for black-belt wit and jagged guitar figures. On the mid-tempo title track, Falkous makes references and demands in celebration (maybe it’s mockery) of elective surgery (“Fasten your proteins/Fatten your thighs/Different bodies/Similar minds”) amid pealing guitars and swelling synthesizers.