Foals

Foals arrived on the scene toward the end of the 2000s, merging indie rock with the melodic punch of new wave, the rhythmic intricacy of math rock, and the expansive textures of post-rock. The approach yielded immediate results, sending their debut album, 2008's Antidotes, to number three on the U.K. charts. Across the ensuing decade the band refined a signature tension between restless dance rock and open-ended atmosphere on subsequent releases such as 2013's Holy Fire, the paired volumes of 2019's Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, and 2022's Life Is Yours.

Longtime friends Yannis Philippakis on guitar and Jack Bevan on drums formed the group in Oxford, England alongside vocalist Andrew Mears, guitarist Jimmy Smith, and bassist Walter Gervers. Taking its name from a linguistic twist on Philippakis' own surname, Foals began as a deliberate counter to the progressive-rock leanings then dominant in Oxford and in the pair's earlier band, the Edmund Fitzgerald. After the 2006 single "Try This on Your Piano," Mears stepped away to focus on Youthmovies (formerly Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies), leaving Philippakis—who had spent his first seven years in a small Grecian village—to take on lead vocals in addition to guitar. Fellow Oxford student Edwin Congreave, met during joint shifts at a local bar and the person who first exposed the others to techno, joined on keyboards despite having no prior experience with the instrument or with bands, completing the lineup.

The five members sharpened their layered sound at house parties throughout the region, which soon led to a deal with Transgressive Records and the April and August 2007 releases of the singles "Hummer" and "Mathletics." Growing buzz across the U.K. prompted a June 2007 trip to New York, where producer and TV on the Radio guitarist Dave Sitek oversaw the debut sessions. Although the recordings themselves proved satisfying, the band ultimately rejected Sitek's mixes, handled the final versions themselves, and issued Antidotes in March 2008—minus both singles—while Sub Pop added the omitted tracks as bonuses for its April U.S. release.

Two years later Transgressive Records put out the follow-up, Total Life Forever. After songs surfaced on Entourage and Misfits, the band delivered its third album, the wide-ranging Holy Fire, in early 2013; the record became Foals' first to reach the Billboard 200 and simultaneously topped the Australian charts. Later that autumn the concert film Live at the Royal Albert Hall appeared on DVD and Blu-ray. Continuing in the same vein, What Went Down arrived in summer 2015. The group toured Europe and the U.S. the following year, with Everything Everything supporting select dates, before returning to the studio in 2017. Early in 2018 the band announced that founding bassist Gervers had departed on amicable terms, with remaining members covering bass parts for the unfinished recordings.

Foals resurfaced in 2019 with two studio albums: Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Pt. 1, released in March and peaking at number two on the U.K. Albums chart, and Pt. 2, issued that October. With live work halted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the band mined its archives for the two-part remix set Collected Reworks. The uplifting single "Wake Me Up" surfaced in November 2021, followed in 2022 by "2AM" and "Looking High." All three tracks appeared on the seventh album, Life Is Yours, Foals' first as a trio after Gervers' 2018 exit and keyboardist Edwin Congreave's departure in 2021.