Pitchfork

News & Tributes is a satisfying record, nooked and crannied with asymmetry and surprise detours, and marred by only one truly shitty song. But it's also less exuberant, less fun, less love-me-or-else desperate than the band's self-titled debut. Instead, it's all lonely ringing guitar chords, light-jog tempos, pensive vocals alternately breathed and belted-- in short, it's not the promo I thought I was copping, not the shit-kicking sequel, Back to the Futureheads Part II.

The Sunderland-based band's self-titled debut met, and embraced, a paradox: The album possessed equal quantities subtlety and exuberance. Those qualities tend to be mutually restraining but the Futureheads indulged both and the result was 2004's most nuanced and giddiest rock record. Kicking off with the triumphant "Yes/No", News & Tributes again rides in booming and victorious, with a thrilling call-and-response vocal hook and a brawny drum beat that's more "Abel" than "A to B".

But it's a bit of a red herring: Ben Hillier (Depeche Mode, Doves, Blur) produced the album, and he jettisons the band's blood-pumping compactness in favor of a larger, less focused sound. The attitude and songwriting follow suit, stretching out in the bigger, lonelier sonic space. "Thursday" couches its deep blue vocal (cf. Bobby Vinton) in flickering eighth-note pulses; it's probably the most static (and soggiest) thing they've written. "Fallout" politely declines syncopation, opting instead for chord punches and a wordless chorus over a dogged two-beat. Just the guitar sound, muffled and overdriven and perhaps a bit sun-damaged, is so utterly alien to this band.

Unlike its predecessor, which was the work of dizzy young band so anxious to assert a unique own voice it kept on pounding home the same ideas, News & Tributes scoops from every flavor in the freezer. Its newfangled variety runs most errant on "Return of the Berserker", which thrashes for thrash's sake, and should only be performed live and in front of drunk people. Other experiments fare better: "Back to the Sea" lays into a low-slung groove centered on one of those deep-ass reverby snares Fugazi loved, while "Burnt" trots out a wily acoustic guitar.

Not everything has gone inverted-- and News & Tributes is still catchy as sin. Stripped down, slower, and less note-happy, the album uses repetition to inculcate. "Skip to the End" does most with the least, building tension with sporadic chords and a taut, jangly guitar lick, releasing it with a four-part harmony. Dudes haven't exactly forgotten how to sing overnight. "Worry About It Later" reups "Hounds of Love"'s barreling drums, chest-puffed vocals, and optimistic hugeness. Obviously, it's the best song here.

Some will tell you the kernel idea, the knee-jerk impulse, the gut rumble that's our cue to get moving, is always the brightest moment. So if News & Tributes comes up short of the band's last record it's ultimately because it lacks the urgency of a one-shot glory bid. But it's impossible to play every song like it's your last when you plan to stick around a while, when you've earned something to lose.