When I first found out The Futureheads’ much coveted single Hounds of Love was a cover of a Kate Bush song I was disappointed. One of the few fresh and provocative sounding rock acts to come out in recent years were, it seemed, yet another indie band standing on the shoulders of giants. On hearing Bush’s original and the album The Futureheads, however, I was suitably reassured. For starters, their version of the gibberish queen’s 80s hit was a thoughtful adaptation with added complexities, as well as being one of those tunes that you sing to yourself all day.
The rest of the album is a gripping listen, veering away from the current trend in bands that replace good ideas with big yet heavily uneventful anthemic chorus lines. The structure of the songs are full of quirks and jumps that reveal an exciting song-writing talent, backed up by a three pronged vocal assault that has been well thought out and executed with aplomb.
However, the sophistication of the album’s sound does not make it a laborious listen by any means. Their thrashing punky outlet, especially on tracks like Decent Days and Nights and Stupid and Shallow counter-balance the general feeling of intricacy and detail. What also provides an edge is the band’s evident reluctance to re-use good ideas time and again, which means there is a huge stream of exciting moments that emerge as you give the album a second and third listen.
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Those of you who are bored after four decades of English bands singing in American accents will be delighted to hear The Futureheads’ colloquial north-east singing voices smothered over the music, giving it a fully genuine quality. This is brought home further by the similarly familiar English lyrics, like on First Day, a song about starting a new job, being ordered around and told you’re lucky to be where you are. The song climaxes with the band screaming “FASTER FASTER!” as the pace of the song races to their command, beating louder and faster with every shout.
The Futureheads have produced, on their first attempt, a brilliant album. The lines than run toward it come straight from 70s punk and, for the vocals, stylised English personas such as Morrissey and Jarvis Cocker, which is not to say that we’ve heard it all before, as their style is wholly individual and refreshing. Put this together with a budding reputation as a dynamite live act and you’ve got something to get excited about. I am.
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