The Futureheads - News & Tributes (679)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Noel Gallagher, as he will probably attest, has uttered a lot of nonsense during his time as a celebrity. But amongst the feuds and off-hand insults, one gem of insight really rings true - the one about the second album usually being of less worth than the first, due to young bands having ten years to write their debut and a year and a half to follow it up with something many demand must be even better.
As such, differences between the two records always get emphasised by those in charge wanting to show their band are truly progressing, just as they need to if they're actually going to be in this for the long haul, rather than fall at the first hurdle (as Noel was alluding to). Sometimes, those differences really are huge (think of the jump between 'Pablo Honey' and 'The Bends'). At other times, slight, natural progressions are lauded as strokes of masterfully ambitious reinvention to an extent where ardent fans of previous work might be put off by hearing quite so many people consistently bang on about how much of a leap forward this is. A leap too far, one might wonder.
Such has been the case with 'News & Tributes' - believe every word you've read or heard about its drastic differences to The Futureheads' eponymous debut, playing up the 'spacious' and 'calculatedly melodic' nature of the new songs as opposed to the 'jittery' and 'fast paced' tunes of yore and you'd think they'd gone from being Melt Banana to Brian Eno. So what have they actually done? Gone from being The Futureheads to a more practiced and adventurous version of the precisely the same band. Not too much here has changed - but just enough has.
It shows another side to a band only hinted at before, exploring what were once possibilities and turning them in to strengths. This is a side where trademark jauntiness and four part heavenly harmonies take as important a place as the breakneck speed and quirky rhythms. A side that yields fuller, more coherent pieces of song writing than anything they've done before - 'Skip To The End's sun-soaked "na na na's" improving with every listen, 'Burnt' a gently tense, melodically rich piece worthy of any crooning balladeer, and 'Back To The Sea' finding the perfect Maximo Park song before the georide's have a chance to write it themselves.
But it's still very much the same band, identical to the one you pinned so many hopes on for being the most intelligent of the current crop. What's best about 'News & Tributes' is how much it compliments the debut, filling out the very idea of The Futureheads as a band. Consider quite how much they'll have to draw on in concert now. Think how fantastically intricate the structure of their sets will have to become. Think, and smile, about where they'll go next.
Artists in this article: The Futureheads
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