Foals: Total Life Forever (recycled blue vinyl) [TRANSGRESSIVE]

Why you'll love it

This 15th anniversary pressing is on recycled blue vinyl, so every copy has its own shade. Total Life Forever reached No. 8 in the UK and was shortlisted for the 2010 Mercury Prize.

This edition

• Recycled blue vinyl
• Unique colour on every copy
• 15th anniversary edition
• Stereo mix

About the album

Before it came out, Foals said their second album sounded like the dream of an eagle dying, which is a lot to live up to. The Oxford band went to Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg with producer Luke Smith and came back with something bigger, warmer and more patient than the wiry math-pop of their debut. The songs breathe more, the guitars shimmer rather than jab, and Philippakis sings like a man who has decided to let the listener in.

"Spanish Sahara" is the centrepiece, a slow build that Zane Lowe premiered as his Hottest Record in the World, while "Miami" and "This Orient" bring the funk-tinged grooves and "Blue Blood" opens the album on a rising tide of guitar. Yannis Philippakis, Jimmy Smith, Walter Gervers, Edwin Congreave and Jack Bevan lock together like a well-oiled machine, and "After Glow" and "What Remains" close with real lift.

It also earned NME Award nominations for best album, best track and best artwork. The album's title track and "Black Gold" round out a record that has held its place in the band's catalogue ever since. Fifteen years on, it's still the one we put on when the shop needs to feel a bit more like a sunrise and a bit less like a Tuesday.

Also at Kops: more Foals on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Transgressive, a reissue of the 2010 album.