The Futureheads/ The Chaos

The Futureheads
The Chaos
(Nul Records)

Returning with renewed confidence, their own record label and lashings of bombast, 'The Chaos' is a high-octane sampling of everything the Futureheads have to offer.
The album opens strongly with a trio of driving rock songs, rife with indulgent fretwork, shoutalong choruses and irresistibly catchy melodies. Eponymous opener ‘The Chaos’ probably most deserves to be singled out for attention, but it’s our recent single of the month ‘Heartbeat Song’ which really strikes a chord with me. Sounding like early Buzzcocks via early Green Day, I like it far, far more than my higher intellect tells me I should. It’s pure feel-good magic.
Then the record throws a curve-ball, resulting in the gradual dawning that this might well be the Futureheads’ Whistle-stop Tour of the Seventies. ‘The Connector’ is pure pomp and grandeur, like a more apocalyptic Queen or The Sweet – a direction taken to its logically absurd conclusion with epic album closer ‘Jupiter’. Both tracks feature doomy chanting, sci-fi superhero posturing and odd, but very welcome, touches of light-heartedness throughout. It’s great to see a band brave enough to do exactly what they want – and pull it off.
This isn't an especially heavyweight or boundary-pushing album, but it’s one that carries itself lightly and proudly displaying the fun the band evidently had in making it.
The great thing about The Futureheads has always been their non-generic vocal arrangements, the fact they can play and, above all else, their sense of humour (what other indie band would have made their name with a Kate Bush cover?). All three are very much in evidence here, and for that I applaud them.