Foals - What Went Down

IF you are looking for atmospheric rock, Foals are one of the best bands out there.

The Oxford five-piece's record speaks for itself with their first three albums going gold.

But after 2013's brilliant Holy Fire, Foals' new record What Went Down seems to have been pulled in two directions with mixed results.

The band seem to now be stuck between their love of catchy dance beats and darker atmospheric rock.

It is amazing when it works but these two styles often stand in contrast and can come across as self indulgent on dull, repetitive songs like Give It All and Albatross.

The single, also titled What Went Down, is a brooding, bass-driven song and one of the best on the album while Mountain at My Gates builds into a foot stomper.

Final track, A Knife In The Ocean, featuring layered guitars and an atmospheric soundscape, is also a fitting conclusion to the record.

But if you like Foals for their rock sound that is about all you can expect from it.

Night Swimmer is full of catchy dance beats and Birch Tree has a synth-like sound and is a fairly typical song for the band in terms of the tempo.

There are also a few oddities here like Snake Oil which seems like Foals' pop song with plenty of 'oohs' and 'yeahs', London Thunder where the band slow things right down and Lonely Hunter, a bizarre song about love...and being help up in traffic.

What Went Down is an interesting, diverse album but at the same time feels stretched and over produced. It simply does not reach the heights of Holy Fire.

- What Went Down is released on August 28