By Chris Brook
This millennium’s own art-punk upstarts, the Futureheads are still riding high on the proverbial indie hype wave of last October’s stateside self-titled debut.
The quartet will make their return to the hub this Friday at the Paradise Rock Club.
The Futureheads first invaded Boston soil in mid-June, upon scoring an opening slot on Franz Ferdinand’s U.S. tour after being handpicked by the multi-platinum selling Scotsmen. The band followed this up last November with a headlining tour, including a sold out, one night engagement at T.T. The Bears in Cambridge.
Fusing together smatterings of drums, crude guitar riffs and four-part harmonies, the Futureheads craft brief — just one song on the 15-track album surpasses three minutes — angular pop-rock. While dozens of bands are getting comparisons to rockers Gang of Four, the Futureheads seem to be one of the few bands that legitimately deserve it. Gang of Four drummer Andy Gill produced five of the record’s tracks and, through the spring of 2004, presided over most of the album’s recording. With the album clocking in at just barely over a half hour, the songs are so blisteringly fast that each track fades into one another flawlessly.
The disc’s opener, “Le Garage,” just shy of two minutes, showcases the band harmonizing in a cappella.
“Meantime” bounces around from one chorus to another, while “Robot” details the lush life of metal androids “living like a robot, talking like a robot.” Also, “Decent Days and Nights,” the disc’s first single, is brimming with snappy energy and choppy vocals revolving around a wild, yet orchestrated mesh of sound.
In “First Day,” the band sounds more like a manager at a law firm than a rock band as they chant: “Welcome to your new job, hope you have a wonderful first day, we are so happy to have you join the team.”
Guitarist and lead vocalist Barry Hyde’s lyrics, to complement the music’s jagged and frequent crescendos, are consistently short and to the point. “Hounds of Love,” the record’s latest American single, is a reworking of the 1985 Kate Bush song of the same name. The song succinctly sums up the Futureheads: brash revivalists with a penchant for fast skeletal rock songs.
The Futureheads play the Paradise Rock Club on Commonwealth Avenue this Friday alongside High Speed Scene and The Shout Out Louds. Tickets for the 18 and over show are $10 in advacne and $12 at the door.