The Future of the Left is not actually any sort of political group who've recorded a tribute record to liberal politicking, but instead are a twisted post punk group from Cardiff, Wales. Charged with electricity and running scattershot throughout Wales, this group is unafraid to get aggressive while wrangling tunes out of their instruments. Their sophomore album, Travels With Myself and Another is a fourteen song frenzy of frenetically paced tunes that could very well melt your face clean off.
Taking elements of screamo, metal, punk, post punk and anything else that's brash and loud, Future of the Left bash and smash all these parts together to generate songs that sound like noiseniks Mclusky x10. Travels With Myself and Another,somehow amongst it's frenzied riffs and wigged out vocals, finds the occasional melody and when it does, it's a moment to remember. "Arming Eritrea," for example is filled with enough post grunge riffage to make Mudhoney blush but there amongst all that sludge emerges this soaring screamed out chorus that just hits home as the world explodes behind it. It's an angsty anthem if there ever was one and it's just the second song.
What makes Travels With Myself and Anotherentertaining is the fact that this is a band, much like Mr. Bungle, that throws everything including a dark sense of humor, into the pot, gets weird with it intentionally and still manages to pull tunes magically out of it's hat. From the stomp of the "The Hope That House Built," to the "Throwing Bricks At Trains," Future of the Left simply know how to be completely original and still write songs that are unforgettable. This is one band that has talent and shows it off like a diamond ring throughout Travels With Myself and Another, be in rough or shined to perfection.
Travels With Myself and Another might be a bit awkward, atonal, and disjointed but adventurous listeners will be constantly rewarded with an album that challenges their senses and ideas of what makes up a good song. Future of the Left clearly don't care what anyone thinks and every song on Travels With Myself and Another is a reflection of that. Be it weird, be it melodic, be it anthemic, or be it the sound of fourteen freight trains crashing simultaneously, Future of the Left are out to make waves and they just about make huge tidal ones time and time again on Travels With Myself and Another.
An excellent album of disjointed post punk gone atonally right, Travels With Myself and Another is a strange but fascinating listen that's a cult classic in the making. Angularity, hilarity, and strangeness has never sounded so good.
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