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The Futureheads

News and Tributes (Vagrant)

Jul 5, 2006 at 4:00 am

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The Futureheads' sophomore album demonstrates their maturation artistically, as it melds the UK rockers' existing power riffs, drums, and bass lines with claps, shakers, Beach Boys-styled harmonies and evolved lyrics. "The Return of the Berserker" and "Cope" offer hard, pogo-worthy punk rock, while the shouted vocals admonishing listeners to "Go home/Think about it properly" on opener "Yes/No" forecast a highly introspective album where each track documents the nervousness about change that plagues many rock stars early in their careers. Even the reflective title track — which mourns the 1958 Munich air crash that claimed the lives of 23 Manchester United soccer players, staff and reporters returning from a winning game in Belgrade — seems to suggest the band's own fear of a similarly premature end. Not if this album is any indication.