The Futureheads are a band who have experienced the highs and lows of the music "industry", and their travails have been much discussed recently. After being dropped by 679 Recordings having releasing two albums to some success and acclaim, they are now born-again proponents of the small label / DIY / self-release path. This, their third album, is accordingly released on their own Nul Records imprint. A quick scan of the song titles may lead you to expect a dour and bitter album based around their recent experiences, with track names like ‘Walking Backwards', ‘This Is Not The World', ‘Hard to Bear', ‘Work is Never Done' and ‘Everything's Changing Today'. And indeed lines such as "Sometimes it feels like we are walking backwards off a mountain / Sometimes it feels like we don't know which way to go " (on ‘Walking Backwards') and "I will explode" (‘Broke Up The Time') do seem to be referring to their music business problems. It would be misleading, however, to imply that this is a downbeat or depressing release. The band seem to have been invigorated, rather than demoralized, by what has happened, and lyrically they come across as defiant: "That was then / This is now / But we will find our feet / And move around" (‘Walking Backwards', again), "It's hard to bear, but not impossible, as such " (‘Hard to Bear'), and even rather arrogant, when they dismissively proclaim "Do you know / When we go over your head / I don't mean to offend / But you'll never understand ".The pace of the album is relentlessly upbeat: there is very little in the way of tempo change or light and shade. This is a shame, as the songs in and of themselves are enjoyable enough, but work better as standalone ‘tracks' rather than a cohesive album. ‘Beginning of the Twist', for example, is a decent single, and works well as an opener, but I just found myself tiring of the "Futureheads template" by the time I was about four or five tracks in. The vocal harmonies also seem to be less to the fore than on previous releases, and are now rather blanded-out and polite in comparison to some of the earlier ballsy 4-part shoutathons.The other distinctive feature of this band (something which perhaps shouldn't need to merit a mention, but probably still does) is their use of - gasps of horror! - their own regional accents to sing in. This gives them a nice air of authenticity, and makes them more readily identifiable than they would otherwise be. This is mirrored lyrically as well, in ‘Work Is Never Done', a paean to regionalism where they sound disappointed that "City gets bigger / But everybody slowly moves away " while at the same time "Your accent gets thicker ".In summary, this is neither a great, groundbreaking departure for The Futureheads, nor a complete failure or disappointment of an album. Tracks like ‘Sleet', ‘The Beginning of the Twist' and ‘Radio Heart' are enjoyable and punkishly upbeat, while other plodders like ‘Sale of the Century' may well have you, like me, hitting the ‘skip' button. If you have enjoyed their previous work you will undoubtedly find much to enjoy here also, but if you are more a fan of albums than tracks, you may be left slightly dissatisfied. 59% [Download The Futureheads This Is Not The World]Links Futureheads [myspace] [official site]