The four members of The Futureheads met each other in the early 2000s in a musical wellness project in the British town of Sunderland. Four years later their self-titled debut was a fact and the band, with its jumpy and energetic sounds, seamlessly joined the revival of punkfunk and new wave in the tradition of Gang Of Four and XTC. Influences that are also abundantly present on the successor News
… And Tributes. However, the boundless energy of their debut has been exchanged for more depth and even experiment. The faltering punk funk guitar riffs of frontmen Barry Hyde and Ross Millard often form the basis for a dozen abstract songs full of blunt rhythms, whimsical melodies (the somewhat whiny voices of Hyde and Billion are practically interchangeable) and unexpected choirs. It is mainly the seriousness with which they do this that makes the record somewhat transcendent from eighties epigonism. As if XTC never existed. (MR)more
