Future of the Left – The Peace and Truce of...

“The proper music abounds,” sneer Future of the Left on their fifth album, taking potshots at the tedium of 'authenticity' while barrel-rolling between jagged slabs of math-centric post-hardcore and spacious Pixies surf. They’re here for your culture, and their merciless approach is as sharp as frontman Falco’s acid tongue.

“Add another finger to your English breakfast / You army surplus motherfucker,” he spits on Eating For None – another takedown in a blur of painfully funny non-sequiturs and prescient satirical portraits. You’d swear the music was a sideshow to the laugh factor if the Shellac-taut likes of Miner’s Gruel weren’t so ear-bleedingly addictive.

As ever, the potent gallows humour of The Peace And Truce... derives not from flaneur-ish observation, but from direct experience: No Son Will Ease Their Solitude feels close to the bone in assessing the notion of parenthood as a suitable cure for careerist ennui. The conclusion? Everything’s fucked. Still, here's the funny side. [Will Fitzpatrick]