Future of the Left // How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident

It could be said that after two game-changing first albums, FOTL kind of ate their own shit on the third. So buoyed were they on the praise they’d received from the music gobbling community that they stuffed themselves so full of their own formula that it became contrived and tawdry. Oh, and someone from the band had fucking ransacked Cash Converters for all the synths they could find. The band turned to the Pledge crowd-funding community for the cash to fund the fourth, but would the fans write off the 3rd as a blip, and get behind them? They did and thankfully, they’ve been repaid, as ‘How to Stop Your Brain…’ is a return to form, as acerbically witty as ever and with a brutality restored to the music. That’s not to say they’re scared of mixing a bit of melody into their post-hardcore explorations of sound and form. It’s at its most satirical on ‘Singing of the Bonesaws’, which plays out like a Charlie Brooker-ised manifesto on the MTV-isation on our nation, made so much more fervent by the rolling bassline and energetic bursts of lead guitar. It’s completely pared back on opening track, ‘Bread, Cheese, Bow and Arrow’, which Andy Falkous spits his delivery of over in Beastie Boys-esque style over instruments that are used only for rhythm, not colour. It’s a strong opening statement for sure. The whole album is totally unafraid of pace and on this one, melody is used to highlight, not simplify. Stormin’. 9/10 Emma R. Garwood