Not only a fittingly accomplished conclusion to their most adventurous and masterful project to date, ‘Part 2’ is also a thoroughbred belter of a record and utterly complete album in its own right.
Overall ‘ENSWBL, Part 2’ picks up the baton of its predecessor and sends it surging to the finish line, leaving Foals legions ahead of their competitors.
It’s the knockout closing pair that illuminate the band’s mastery of dynamics, unbearabletension and cathartic release.
Best listened to with the context of Part 1, the way Part 2 rounds the 'Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost' era off makes for the argument that this is Foals' most accomplished body of work to date.
It’s triumphant, exciting and eminently listenable.
It’s world conquering, it’s ambitious and it’s brave.
As both a standalone piece and as a counterpart to its predecessor, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 is a towering achievement.
More muscular, even their more pretentious moments feel deliberate and decisive. Whatever the new model becomes, Foals are a band who thrive in the seas of change. Reliably brilliant.
They’ve been one of the biggest bands in Britain for a while now – and finally, they truly sound like it.
Part 2 succeeds by burning along the road with some of the biggest riffs of their career, but also ending with an expansive epic.
Intelligent pop with poetry and heart.
Oxford brainiacs crank up the volume on blistering sixth album.
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost — Part 2 is at once a satisfying and boundary-pushing listen from a band that sound hungry over a decade into their career.
The best accomplishment from this two-part thriller is Foals’ lack of hamstrung attempts at evolution.
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 doesn’t quite live up to the lofty benchmarks set by Part 1—or really any Foals record to date—but that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot to enjoy here. They’re of a one-track mind throughout, which can definitely make this record a bit of a slog to get through at times, but the peaks are just as high as anything the British rock band have released to date.
All of this is well done. The album’s problem, such as it is, lurks in the gulf between its advance billing and its contents.
Like a popcorn disaster movie, the album is full of adrenaline, and yet doesn’t stick in the mind long after you’ve finished with it.
Mostly it continues the now-standard Foals album formula, dividing its tracklist into Aggressive, Funky, and Somber. It’s not a complement to its predecessor so much as just another collection of Foals songs.
#20 | / | Gigwise |
#27 | / | Rough Trade |
#49 | / | No Ripcord |
#65 | / | Under the Radar |
/ | Radio X |