Usually, when Andy Falkous sets his sights on a particular group of people, they have no way to escape his vitriol. Responsible for some particularly scathing lyrics in his time (and it’s impossible to overstate how much more relevant Lapsed Catholics, a rant against Rupert Murdoch and his media empire, has become, post-Hackgate), it’s normally the case that when Falco takes aim, he hits the mark.

The fact that the third album by Future of the Left (facebook) is called The Plot Against Common Sense (due out next spring) would seem to indicate that he has a lot on his mind, and Polymers are Forever clearly shows that those people who have rubbed the famously outspoken frontman up the wrong way had better start running. As in, right fucking now, because it’s probably going to get ugly really quick.

The six-song release has three songs that were fully recorded, and three that were left in demo form. This reviewer would consider it slightly ironic that the scales are tipped slightly in favour of the back half of this EP, and songs that the band “didn’t have the time, money or inclination to re-record”. On the whole, though, it makes no difference, because Polymers Are Forever is the best EP of the year. It’s not immediate (not exactly a byword for FotL material), but showcases even more depth than before and packs a considerable punch even though it’s just short of 22 minutes long.

Led by the title track, the only one of these songs that has made the album, the EP shows that Falco’s lyrics are perhaps better than they’ve ever been. A prominent line in blistering second track ‘Apologies to Emily Pankhurst’ is, ‘She is the opposite of sex, and the opposite of sex is no better than love’, while the chorus to ‘Dry Hate’ is delivered with all the force of a punch in the guts: ‘Think of us as ready-made, Jesus loves a renegade’. The song rails against ‘coffee-sniffing motherfuckers’ and is the sound of FotL stripping things back to their rawest. More of this on the album please.

There are also some interesting departures made on ‘My Wife is Unhappy’ and the ambitious, three-part closer ‘destroywhitchurch.com’, which show that the band, who have gone through some personnel changes since Travels With Myself and Another two-and-a-half years ago, are striving to push themselves forward, which makes the prospect of a 15-track album like The Plot Against Common Sense seriously exciting.

Falco’s vocal style remains an acquired taste, and there’s not much here to win over the unconverted, even if New Adventures is rather catchy (not in a Drink Nike sense, though); Future of the Left have always been a divisive band, mind, so nothing much has changed in that respect. What has changed is their desire to take risks: it’s become even more apparent, which bodes extremely well for their third album. It’s well possible that Polymers are Forever is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Polymers are Forever was released on November 14th through Xtra Mile Recordings.