Foals, 'Holy Fire' -- 47 Second Album Review

British band Foals' third album Holy Fire starts off on a bad note. First song "Prelude" flips from gauzy atmospherics to an ill-advised funk-rock vibe that continues through the first three minutes of second song "Inhaler."

If nothing else, these B-side-level experiments serve to clearly focus what the Oxford band is best at: The relentless, almost-icy dance rock they executed perfectly on last album Total Life Forever. When the band shed the Parliament imitations for comfort zone songs like "My Number," "Everytime" and "Providence" all is right in the universe.

But again, these songs are scattered amidst ballads like "Stepson" and Eno/U2-aspiring tracks like "Moon." The end result is an album with some fantastic hot spots, but nothing close to a holy fire.

The Bottom Line: Cherry-pick this one for the dance rock numbers. You can find better funk and ballads elsewhere.