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Future of the Left | The Plot Against Common Sense

Future of the Left frontman Andrew Falkous's anti-music piracy tirade on Myspace three years ago was far more convincing and a galaxy less stuffy and condescending than David Lowery's recent response to an NPR intern's essay about how she hardly ever buys CDs. But on The Plot Against Common Sense, Falkous addresses the real problem with illegal downloading via the acerbic ferocity of "Sheena Is a T-shirt Salesman." Once upon a time, licensing and marketing were borderline blasphemous concepts in the indie and punk world. Nowadays, because practically any means of making money and promotion are necessarily acceptable, you can hear shitty three-chord punk bands playing Sunday afternoon gigs at the Midway Café engage in earnest, lengthy discussions about their "brand." Falkous clearly has his finger glued to the pulse; the jet-black satire and staggering mad-sonic science of The Plot Against Common Sense makes his old band Mclusky's Mclusky Do Dallas from 2002 sound like a "very special" episode of Full House by comparison. The sky-scraping grand-finale, "Notes on Achieving Orbit," ravages the piss out of callow, breathless fame fetishes and "Robocop 4 – Fuck Off Robocop" stands as the best song title of 2012 thus far.