Yr More Than A Punchline Now

  

The new album by Future Of The Left is incredibly ambitious, complex, challenging, immediate, and viscerally satisfying.  In a move that makes me suspect a conscious attempt at self-parody, the effete snobs at Pitchfork gave it a six out of ten.  While FOTL frontman Andy Falkous has already retaliated with his trademark blend of wit and corrosive bile, I thought I would end my exile by urging you all to BUY THE PLOT AGAINST COMMON SENSE WHEN IT COMES OUT.  TWICE. 

Saying that The Plot Against Common Sense is special is almost redundant... that's how goddamn consistent Future Of The Left are.  This is their third album and I can count the number of their songs I don't enjoy on exactly one hand.  And those songs aren't even BAD, they just don't completely annihilate me like EVERY OTHER SONG these fine people put out.  To an aging punk (that would be yrs truly), they have managed to hit, with precision and alarming force, the EXACT spot where aggression and intellect,  humor and rage, chaos and discipline, the ridiculous and the sublime all converge.


Here it all is, then.  Blinding rushes of sneering fury, stomping mid-tempo songs that manage to be both bleak and defiantly uplifting, moments of almost pastoral beauty... I hope I'm not putting too fine a point on this, but one of my very favorite bands has returned from near-breakup with two new members and an excellent album so maybe you understand if I am excited.


Oh, and Pitchfork Creep?  A moment of yr time?


LISTEN, JERK.  Remember what I said about the ridiculous/sublime up there?  That's where Mr. Falkous's lyrics LIVE, ya bum.  So, yes, sometimes they are going to fall on the "ridiculous" side of the equation.  That, dummy, is ON PURPOSE.  The absurdity of the "Fat frogs and ethnic spiders glowing in the dark" in "Rubber Animals" makes the later line "We were found unconscious just behind a Burger King/Naked, beaten, bitten by ants" much more bleak and terrifying.  The cornball jokes (and yes, the jokes are sometimes REALLY corny.  They are also frequently HILARIOUS) are there to offset the profound and (yes) touching moments.  It's the same tactic as putting the shockingly pretty "City Of Exploded Children" right after a frothing rocker like "Cosmo's Ladder" (come to think of it, it's the same tactic as naming yr prettiest song "City Of Exploded Children").


Cheese and crackers, you guys, this is a GREAT album.  I could go on (and on), but I reckon I'll spare you any more of my gasping fanboy hyperbole.  Here are "Beneath The Waves An Ocean" and the aforementioned "Rubber Animals", for yr perusal.  If anyone from the FOTL camp would like these taken down, I will of course oblige in a heartbeat... and, dear readers... SUPPORT THESE FOLKS.  BUY THE ALBUM, you deadbeats.  Maybe we can convince them to do a U.S. Tour so we can all get wrecked in th' live setting.


God Bless Future Of The Left.  Pitchfork can go fuck itself.  That is all.