| |
|
|
THE FUTUREHEADS
(Sire/Star Time)
|
|
|
|
|
|
No recent pop-music event makes more sense than the Futureheads’ opening for Franz Ferdinand on that neo-new-wave band’s recent American tour. The British quartets mirror each other in many ways, from the insistence that their punk-influenced songs should inspire dancing rather than moshing (true) to their on-the-record denial of all things ’80s in their music (false). But the Futureheads have taken the "Take Me Out" mold to a hyper-kinetic extreme, plowing through 15 songs on their homonymous full-length in under 40 minutes. Each of these numbers, from the jumpy "Decent Days and Decent Nights" to "First Day" (which with its chant of "This is the job that people die for" could be a themesong for the American version of the BBC television series The Office), bursts with both exuberance and derivation. This is a band who live up to their XTC-meets-the-Clash reputation. Although it’s short, the album doesn’t feel truncated. And taken one by one, the songs inspire headbanging and sing-alongs, even on first listen. The Futureheads can write longer songs later: for now, they seem content to make listeners feel alive — even if it’s just for a brief moment.
