Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

The Futureheads
The Chaos and The Academy
Birmingham 4th May 2010

The Futureheads are back with "The Chaos", wait a minute didn't we have chaos thirty years ago? And didn't it look a bit like this:

The Futureheads haven't gone all shaven headed and Oi Oi Oi on us have they? It's not going to be Sham 69 & the NF; loads of sieg heiling; stabbings at the Top Rank, and Gary Bushell is it? I got myself a copy of "The Chaos" and went off to the Academy to find out. [Mmm this sounds a bit like a journalistic premise here. Sorry it won't happen again]

The Chaos is FUTUREHEAD IV, in case you didn't know, eleven tracks including the free download "Struck Dumb" and the preceding single "Heartbeat Song". The album sounds, on first listening anyway, like "This is Not the World" Part II. Martin Youth Killing Joke Fireman Glover is once more at the controls and the overall intention, direction and reverberation remains the same, pointedly post punk.

It's "Chaos" by name but it's certainly not chaos by nature, it's the most clipped, precise, boiled down Futurehead album to date. From the 54321 countdown of "The Chaos" opener we are driven onward in a frenzy of Franz Ferdinandesque guitar tinges to the punk bombast of "Struck Dumb; the sha la la la speeding poppiness of "Heartbeat Song"; the frenetic Gof4esque "Connector" - ROAR!, the all singing all chanting "I Can Do That" (supposedly straight from the gob of that impoverished punk Yosser Hughes); the dark alley of "Sun Goes Down" (a bit like "It was Cold" by the Ruts with some of "London Calling" thrown in for good measure). There's no time for longueurs on FUTUREHEAD IV, well not until the very end anyway, when the quirky Futurehead voiceulisations are finally given free rein during the prog rock finale "Jupiter".

THE ACADEMY then, how did it go? Well pretty damn well actually, the assembled, which was a fair representation of the Great British beast; every size, class, colour and creed, sexual perversion and religious denomination were there to get a goodly sized splattering of "The Chaos" cake.

Between "The Chaos" to start, and "Jupiter" to close we got: "Walking Backwards", "This is Not the World", "Heartbeat Song", "Hounds of Love" (vocalisations were compulsory), "Area", "Struck Dumb", "Broke up the Time", "Meantime", "Decent Days and Nights", "I Can Do That" (a soon to be single) and "Worry About it Later" - or something like that. And then there was "Skip to the End" & eternal incendiary "Man Ray" to take us to closedown.

So if Futurehead I was a deadpan punk doodle; Futurehead II a New Wave excursion too far; Futurehead III a post punk pop reincarnation and Futurehead IV pop punk with a capital P; where to next for The Futureheads, once The Chaos is done? Do they go the way of The Hot Rats and do an LP of covers - The Futureheads version of "Love Cats" was better than the Hot Rats version after all. And The Futureheads do need to do a cover of Gabriel's "Games without Frontiers" if only to be Kate just one more time. Or do they go for the LIVE album! No one does live albums anymore - a live album of new material perhaps - sounds dangerous. Perhaps Futurehead V will be a chaotic psychotic deadpan punk doodle with latent live new wave overtones!.........mmm sounds good.

But oh shit "I've been duped" apparently THE FUTUREHEADS aren't PUNK after all they're part of a DANCE SCENE! According to the glorious "69 degrees" MAG:

Silly old Substance Sounds 69 with their "dance floor hits".

If you want silly though we can do silly, goodnight!

Go here to buy "The Chaos" and to read some sensible reviews