The Future of the Left Is a Plot Against Common Sense

There's math rock, there's spazzcore, there's post rock, there's post punk and then there's the Future of the Left. Crazy to the point of needing to be committed, this group of musical nutters is literally all over the place and refuse to compromise on controlling the chaos around them. Their album The Plot Against Common Sense is a frenetic, kinetic, and nervous ball of energy that builds up into an explosive sub genre of rock and roll that's the Future's own.

Perhaps sounding like Black Dice meeting The Fall in a knife fight with the Locust and An Albatross, Future of the Left make a racket; a lot of racket. Guitars seem to tear tear themselves apart, vocals shrill, scream, and scrape, drums bash, grind, and explode and The Plot Against Common Sense is quite possibly the soundtrack to the end of the world. The Plot Against Common Sense is not a record you listen to, to unwind. Oh no. This is a record to get wound up to, to excise your aggressions with, to not go quietly with. It's a record that's out of control played by a band who may or may not know what that word means. It's awesome stuff and it's mixture of every post-genre known to man combined with it's sense of aggression is so overwhelming it will crush you.

The Plot Against Common Sense is mayhem and it is awesome but it might be too much for some. You see the Future of the Left are not an easy band to get into. If you're remotely organized, polite, quiet and unassuming then The Plot Against Common Sense will scare you to death. If, however, your life is a disorganized disaster and coould come unraveled at any point then these guys will inspire you.

The Future of the Left Is Bright

The Future of the Left come in so fast from the left-field side of indie rock that they'll slide right into you and give you a concussion. Having more in common with someone like Thunderbirds Are Go!, The Apes, or An Albatross than a pack of liberals, this band creates what I like to call "scene indie." This is white belt music pure and simple and is for fans who have dyed black hair, romulan hair cuts, and think The Locust are almost mainstream.

Their mini-album, Polymers Are Forever, is a synth punk record with atonal properties, angular aural attacks, and a strange sense of destruction. This isn't catchy pop music but rather music that's jagged and jumpy and is suffering from ADHD. With synths blaring out of every corner, vocals wailing, and drums attempting to keep up The Future of the Left create a lot of racket that will scare some people. For those in white belts though this is a dance party come to life and I have to admit that the nervous nature of the songs here are quite appealing. This is hyper stuff that's thrashy, and filled with enough akimbo rhythms to give you motion sickness.

Short and sweet, Polymers Are Forever, is a blast of frenetic energy that will leave you breathless. Slightly atonal, weird, and sharp as a tack, The Future of the Left are fantastic at what they do. This is a good record whether or not you're a scene kid or not. Grinding synthetic mayhem has never sounded this good.

Oh and in case you're wondering...http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scene%20kid

The Future of the Left Travels With Themselves

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.