Antidotes, the acclaimed debut album by UK quintet Foals, won them attention, and the opportunity to evolve in a space of their own. Two years on from that impressive introduction, Total Life Forever is the sound of a band settling into and surveying the decay of old protocols. Written primarily in the basement of their Oxford HQ and recorded in Gothenburg, Total Life Forever is an album as persuasive emotionally as Antidotes was physically.