Total Life Forever by Foals

Their frantic 2008 debut, Antidotes , posited Oxford's Foals as an outfit more dynamic than your average British indie band. Their commitment to jittery interlocking rhythms and guitar filigree evolves eloquently on Total Life Forever , a second album about post-human futures, orientalism and much else besides. But while buzz tracks such as the calm "Spanish Sahara" make a play at mainstream songcraft with characteristic tricksiness, TLF fails to make a decisive leap either towards the tremulous sonic hauteur of a Radiohead or revolutionary mass appeal. Good, but not quite great.