Holy Fire is the third album from Foals and if the lead single ‘Inhaler’ is anything to go by, it will almost inevitably build the fanbase that they have cemented for themselves with their first two albums, Antidotes and Total Life Forever. The Oxford-born band have retained their experimental, post-rock tendencies, yet their songs now have a serious air of ambition about them.
Reviews thus far have been positive, with The Guardian’s Michael Hann describing it as “an album by a British guitar band who want to win a huge audience without writing chantalongs for the drinkers’ crowd, or lowest-emotional-common-denominator piano ballads.” High praise indeed and backed up by a solid 9/10 from NME’s reviewer, who gives Yannis’ new ‘feelings laid bare’ approach a thumbs up.
Richard Thompson is Britain's answer to Neil Young, an uncompromising guitar virtuoso whose often stridently political songwriting is indelibly influenced by his country's folk music. Like Young, Thompson is refusing to go gentle into that good night. At the venerable age of sixty-one, he has written and recorded an album of new material which is as strong and compelling as much of his earlier work.
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