Reviews

I think this may top the lot. For ladies and gentlemen, tonight I was also knocked off by my chair at the Night and Day by not one, but three stage divers. The times, they are indeed a'changin'. 

So why all the excitement? Well, tonight's rush of blood to various teenage heads within the room stems from an Oxford quintet called Foals.

If you discount the lead singer's rather fashionable haircut, on stage they don't actually look like all that much to be jumping about. Indeed, it's rather disappointing to see that they've not arrived in their trademark tennis player garb, despite their self-confessed love of resembling Andy Murray.

Hyped to within an inch of their lives recently, you could forgive me for expecting the dance-punk equivalent of the second coming.

And whilst they can certainly get my foot tapping, I can't help thinking that it all sounds curiously similar to another dance-punk band every man and his dog have been going on about recently. Indeed, if you closed your eyes, you could be forgiven for thinking you're watching those other wunderkinds of 2007, Battles! .

Do we really need a British version of Battles? Granted, it's all razor sharp and steeped in the kind of uber-coolness other bands would cut off their right hands for, and fair play to the boys for managing to both recover from the sound problems the Night and Day is notorious for, and rather humbly thanking the audience for coming out that night.

But it's all a bit too style-over-substance and whilst they've certainly got tunes, they're not the ones that stay in the head until you want to scrub them out with wire wool. They may get the kids dancing, but don't most repetitive drum beats with three chords placed over the top nowadays?