Music Matters

The Foals' math rock deserves more than Austin respect: Here's to conductingwith drums

It's easy to sit here at CultureMap's master audio studio/listening bistro/DJ training center (aka, my laptop) and pick concerts by artists who have won armfuls of Grammys, logged No. 1 hits like it was as easy as filling a frequent-eaters card at Quiznos and are known from the tip of Cape Horn to the ice caps of the North Pole.

Every once in a while, however, a music journalist has got to push all his chips in on an artist whose chili is just starting to get hot.

Dealer, I'm all in on Foals. And any alternative rock fans who like their digitized beats and harmonies splashed with a bit of ambient abstract should step up to the plate and come support this Oxford, England buzz band when it plays Fitzgerald's on Tuesday night. This is the type of cool-ass band that needs to know it will get support in Texas outside of Austin.

I first got wind of Foals about two years ago when the concept of "math rock" — music featuring asymmetrical time signatures and atypical beat patterns — started entering my consciousness with the ascent of bands like Minus the Bear, Mute Math and Bloc Party. Think more Radiohead and less early Beatles when trying to put sounds to that definition.

Foals debut album, Antidotes, wasn't exactly math rock, but was certainly well crafted and slightly jarring when propped against a pop landscape that is built primarily in 4/4 time. In addition to layers of strings, beats and vocals, the recordings were executed in muted and sometimes purposely amateur ways (rhythms collected on cassette players and then washed back into the track mix) for a vibe that sounds like it was created in anyplace but a sterile recording studio.

Brits caught on quickly to Foals (aren't those pale-skinned, sharp-eared English kids always ahead of the alt-rock curve?) but here in the land of Bon Jovi and Miley Cyrus, Antidotes was nearly ignored.

The group's second and most recent album, Total Life Forever, has fared better on this side of the pond venturing into the Top 40 of the Billboard Heatseekers charts when it was released last year. More confident and with more resources at his discretion, lead singer Yannis Philippakis sounds like a conductor who uses guitars and drums to lead his symphony in lieu of a conductor's baton.

The slow pulse and Neil Young-like falsetto of "Spanish Sahara" makes the listener feel like things are about to get hot and lonely. It's reminiscent of "My Morning Jacket" at its emotional best before exploding into a dance track. By contrast, the delicate strings and quick-chanting of "This Orient" is music that takes a listener to places in the mind without physically having to leave the cozy confines of their headphones.

That's only part of the journey the Foals are providing with this new music. The rest requires a trip to Fitz's on Tuesday. See you there.

Foals @ 8 p.m. Tuesday at Fitzgerald's

Tickets: $13

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Movie Review

Supergirl fails to take flight in a movie weighed down by grief

Photo courtesy of DC Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures

Milly Alcock in Supergirl.

Last year's Superman reboot brought a renewed sense of optimism for, if not the concept of the comic book movie, then at least the DC Comics universe. After more than a decade of DC films that felt mostly creatively bankrupt, the leadership of James Gunn gave the story a sense of fun. That included the brief introduction of Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, who’s now getting her own showcase in, naturally, Supergirl.

When we first met her in Superman, Supergirl was in rough shape, arriving at the Fortress of Solitude visibly inebriated. Nothing has changed at the beginning of this film, save for her aimlessly traveling around the universe with her rambunctious dog, Krypto. One of her random stops puts her in the same bar as Ruthye (Eve Ridley), who is looking for help tracking down Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) and a group known as the Brigands after they brutally murdered her family.

Kara is initially loath to offer aid, but when Krem shoots a poison dart into Krypto while escaping, her motivation goes way up, especially since Krem holds the antidote. Kara, with Ruthye doggedly following her, uses every means available to her to find Krem, a journey that is hampered by galaxies having different colored suns than the one that gives her powers, the yellow sun.

Directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Ana Nogueira, the film is a big step back in the fun category, not least because Supergirl is deep in her feelings for much of the film. Her personal trauma, which is detailed in occasional flashbacks, gives a reason for her depression, but fails to land fully. The story seems to want everyone to be sad, as it includes a child trafficking ring and multiple instances of families being murdered.

Milly Alcock and Krypto in Supergirl.Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

To try to counteract that downer material, the filmmakers give Supergirl many opportunities to show off her fighting skills. While still CGI-heavy, the action scenes contain enough of a semblance of reality that they feel exciting. Unfortunately, this is undercut by the inclusion of several slow-motion sequences, giving the impression that the filmmakers didn’t trust the actors to deliver the goods on a consistent basis.

Superman (David Corenswet) makes a handful of appearances in the film, and while his presence is welcome given how well the character came across in the previous movie, it also doesn’t allow Supergirl to become her own person. Almost everything she does is colored by either her cousin or her parents, and since her powers are identical to those of Superman, there is very little that makes her story unique aside from how she’s dealing with the fallout.

Alcock (House of the Dragon, Sirens) gives an appealing performance despite her character being drunk and/or moody most of the time. She definitely sells what Supergirl is going through, so if given a better story in a future film, she’s proven her capability. Schoenaerts makes for a pretty good villain, although he’s aided by a look that includes a face full of studs. Jason Momoa has a memorable supporting role as the bounty hunter Lobo, even if his character doesn’t add much to the story.

While not a full-on disaster, Supergirl does not continue the momentum that Superman started. With a story that’s more concerned with showing audiences death scenes than a hero saving people, the film doesn’t seem to understand the appeal of a character like Supergirl or how to make her someone audiences will return to over and over again.

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Supergirl is now playing in theaters.

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