Holy Fire (Foals)

BY merging dance-floor beats with \guitar theatrics on their 2008 debut album, Antidotes, this British band emerged with a singular vision.

Holy Fire: Foals

BY merging dance-floor beats with finicky guitar theatrics on their 2008 debut album, Antidotes, this British band emerged with a singular vision.

The result was one of the most compelling recent contributions to the math-rock subgenre. Total Life Forever (2010) saw the quintet leaning more towards indie pop, experimenting with atmospheric tricks, and pushing Yannis Philippakis's voice higher into the mix; handy, as he has both striking tone and unique phrasing.

Holy Fire finds the band consolidating this new-found pop aesthetic while accentuating the intricate percussive and guitar interplay that first set them apart. Still in their mid-20s, Foals are almost old hands at this game. Production by British duo Flood (U2, Smashing Pumpkins) and Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, the Killers) certainly works in the band's favour, as the album sounds a million bucks.

There's plenty to like about the first two singles - the metallic chorus riffs of Inhaler and the sheer joy of My Number, their poppiest song yet - but, like Total Life Forever, this is a collection to be enjoyed as a whole.

Some of the band's finest work appears on the second half: notably the stirring strings that run through Milk & Black Spiders and the staccato bombast of Providence. Even long-favoured studio techniques, such as double-tracking and adding reverb to Philippakis's vocals, continue to sound fresh against the innovative ideas laid down by his bandmates.

Holy Fire opens with a storming, four-minute instrumental, Prelude, that works well as a statement of intent; the following 10 tracks do nothing to erode that mood. At a touch under 50 minutes, that's quite an achievement.

RATING: 4 stars
LABEL: Warner