‘This song is dedicated to the merchandise manufacturers who made it possible, with their hard work, talent, application and love of tote bags.’ So ends Sheena Is a T-Shirt Salesman, the first song on the new Future of the Left album. Two minutes in, and it has already done enough to live up to its apocalyptic artwork (even though, yes, there is a penguin featured in it). Duck and cover. The Plot Against Common Sense is probably the most aggressive thing the band have released to date, and Falco and his band are in fine form. In relative terms, Curses and Travels With Myself and Another were merely the sound of them getting warmed up.
15 songs are shoehorned into 49 minutes. There’s not a lot of room to breathe, but then again, Future of the Left don’t do breathing space. There are enough twists and turns along the way ensure things are kept interesting: the synths that were incorporated into the band’s sound on the Polymers are Forever EP last year make numerous appearances here; the lead track from that release comes smack-dab in the middle on the new album, and benefits massively from the new context. The nagging synth hook of Failed Olympic Bid (soon joined by guitars that mimic trumpets – yes, again, you read that right) is simple yet extremely effective, and the same can be said about the electronics that underpin (the vocoder-featuring!) A Guide to Men.
Expanding to a quartet has worked wonders for the band; new dynamics are most apparent on songs like the album highlight Beneath the Waves an Ocean (featuring a bass riff that can only be described as ‘evil’), the incredibly direct Goals in Slow Motion and the ambitious closing track Notes on Achieving Orbit. It allows them to go places they wouldn’t have dared before, and a choice example of this is Cosmo’s Ladder, a wonderfully weird song which features some particularly inspired lyrics: ‘I have seen into the future: everyone is slightly older / First you’re fat and then you shrink into a common curse / I have been on television (in principle, if not reality) / Truth applies in both dimensions’.
Falco has always been known for his abilities as a lyricist, and the fact that he stands by the lyrics on the new record as being the best he’s ever written really says something, because it’s when he really lets loose on Robocop 4 – Fuck Off Robocop, railing against Michael Bay, shameless cash-ins and the ‘sequelitis’ that has plagued Hollywood for years (‘Pirates of the Caribbean 47: Johnny Depp stars as a robot pirate who loses his wife in a game of poker and tries to win her back, with hilarious consequences’), and again on Sorry Dad, I Was Late For the Riots, taking aim at trustafarians and scoring several hits, that he hits his stride. Some of these lines are flat-out hilarious, the sort that others wouldn’t even dare to fit into similar songs, while others are sarcastic and cutting.
He says himself that he’s at the peak of his powers, and it’s hard to disagree. This time, though, the rest of the band have taken great strides forward with him, and the result is that they cover quite a lot of ground. On initial listens, the back half, even though it’s bolstered by breathtaking recent single I Am the Least of Your Problems, may seem to have less of an impact, but Anchor is the hidden gem of the album, so far from falling off towards the end, it merely opens out. The Plot Against Common Sense takes time to fully sink in, a gloriously acerbic listen that only starts to make complete sense after you’ve given it a few listens. Once that happens, though – and there’s no other word for it – it explodes. It’s a thrilling album from start to finish, one that grabs the listener by the scruff of the neck and refuses to let go.
I Am the Least of Your Problems:
Sheena Is A T-Shirt Salesman video:
[PRE-ORDER Future of the Left – The Plot Against Common Sense // Xtra Mile / Amazon / iTTunes]
