Oxford trio Foals take a fresh, thrilling new direction on with their upcoming album ‘Life Is Yours’, which will be released on June 17th via Warner Records.
Foals have finally revealed the release date for their upcoming seventh studio album Life Is Yours, which is slated to land on June 17th ahead of their Fairview Park Dublin gig on June 27th.
Life Is Yours is the follow-up to the triumphant, two-part Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, which proved to be a pivotal pinnacle in the band’s story. Not only did it result in the band’s first ever UK No.1 album, but the ambitious scale of the Mercury-nominated album saw Foals win their first BRIT Award for Best Group.
Life Is Yours features disco-tinged guitars, tight syncopated rhythms and punchy, insistent hooks – echoing their roots as purveyors of rambunctious house party chaos. Thematically, it’s escapist, transportive and in rapture at life’s endless possibilities. It’s a record that’s perfectly in tune with the prevailing atmosphere of this moment in time – a life-affirming celebration as the world is reunited.
Life Is Yours establishes its tone with the bright beam of optimism provided by its title track, its exuberance showing no sign of slowing down with previewed singles ‘2am’ and ‘Wake Me Up’.
There’s a unity to the sound, whether Foals are bouncing into the Balearic beats of ‘Looking High’, experimenting with West African guitar grooves on ‘Flutter’, or simply savouring the prospect of playing live together again within the dance dynamics of ‘The Sound’. It all comes full circle with ‘Wild Green’, which simultaneously celebrates the rebirth of summer with an existential tinge that all beautiful moments are inevitably fleeting.
“I feel that with Everything Not Saved… we touched upon all of the facets of our sound up until that point. This time we wanted to find a new way to express ourselves,” Yannis Philippakis says. “We wanted to refocus and do something that shared a DNA throughout the songs: a physicality, a danceability, and with energy and joyousness. It’s definitely the poppiest record we’ve ever made.”
Foals – completed by Jimmy Smith and Jack Bevan – started the project within the dark, windowless confines of their south London rehearsal space in the midst of the winter lockdown. Feeling contained and tethered, they were drawn towards spirited sounds that looked to a brighter future, not only in terms of climate but also in terms of the unreplicable thrill of performing live. By the time the process reached its conclusion, the verdant summer surroundings of Real World Studios near Bath matched the album’s ardent atmosphere.
The band experimented with a tapestry of different producers (often working within different configurations) on various tracks. The album’s varied creative voices include John Hill (Portugal The Man, Florence + The Machine), Dan Carey (Tame Impala, Fontaines D.C.), Miles James and A.K. Paul (co-founder of the Paul Institute with his brother Jai Paul).
Much of the album was subsequently mixed by ten-time Grammy Award winner Manny Marroquin (Post Malone, Kanye West, Rihanna), with several tracks mixed by another multiple Grammy Award winner in the shape of Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Coldplay, Muse, Kings of Leon).
Catch Foals live on June 27th at Dublin’s Fairview Park, and revisit our chat with both Yannis Philippakis and Jack Bevan about ‘2am’ and ‘Wake Me Up’.
Life Is Yours is now available to pre-order here.
Life is Yours tracklist:
1. ‘Life Is Yours’
2. ‘Wake Me Up’
3. ‘2am’
4. ‘2001’
5. ‘(summer sky)’
6. ‘Flutter’
7. ‘Looking High’
8. ‘Under The Radar’
9. ‘Crest of the Wave’
10. ‘The Sound’
11. ‘Wild Green’
