Album Review

There comes a time in all bands’ careers when one of two things happen. Either they strike out in new directions or they take a bigger risk by simply doing nothing and releasing albums that sound generally the same. You have the Radiohead example on one end and Dave Matthews on the other. With their third full-length album, Franz Ferdinand comes down decidedly with the latter group, producing a record so Franz Ferdinand-y that the songs sound as if they may already be part of our collective memories, tunes from the summer of 2005 that made chicks get up and dance at an otherwise dull bar.

And it was 2005 when the Scottish group last put out an album. In our current musical culture, that’s a lifetime. The marching sound of mid-00’s post-punk revivalism has been replaced by more experimental mining from the fertile new wave period, and found divergent elements of funk, folk, and electronic music to mix into the punch. This isn’t to say this impressively mediocre work won’t produce singles. I imagine Tonight will be a big hit, giving the post-punk revival another cross-over into mainstream audiences.

It certainly has the stuff radio station programmers love. “Ulysses” may do an injustice to its namesake, but it does have one of those great bar-and-frat party calls to arms: “Come on let’s get high.” And the chanted march of the chorus is just the sort of thing white people love to dance to when they aren’t making fools of themselves to ‘Lil Wayne. The equally banal “Turn it On” (another great call-to-arms there, too) features some of the same elements, including the band’s apparent research into Fad Gadget and early Human League. The big hit here will doubtlessly be “No You Girls,” a continuation of the album’s first two songs with the addition of the catchy repeated lines: “No you girls never know / How you make a boy feel.”

Listen to “Ulysses”
Listen to “Turn it On”
Listen to “No You Girls”

They get out on a limb with “Send Him Away,” with its Dire Straits groove and rather interesting build-up of hand-claps and jazzy guitar at the end. “Twilight Omens” sounds as if it belongs on another album altogether. The synth-glam here is part mid-80s Gary Numan and part Electric Light Orchestra, but also authentically interesting. Had the group followed this path, I think we’d be listening to a completely different (and much more satisfying) record. Instead, Franz Ferdinand returns to the safe territory of “Bite Hard” and “What She Came For,” bland post-punk anthems with a little blues-guitar thrown in for good measure. “Live Alone,” veers back to slightly more exploratory sounds with its swirling synths and controlled rhythm showing another direction for the group. This relative bravery is continued with “Can’t Stop Feeling” and the just-under-eight-minutes “Lucid Dreams.”

Listen to “Twilight Omens”
Listen to “Bite Hard”
Listen to “Live Alone”

Overall, the album is spotty, with some pretty hard evidence of lazy, hack work. Most of the first half of the record seems like a cynical reproduction of the band’s breakout hit “Take Me Out.” The chances Franz Ferdinand has taken here aren’t necessarily revolutionary, but they do point to a willingness to expand their sound, and hopefully to expand the palette of those consumers who might pick up the album after hearing the singles. And that’s the good news here. Franz Ferdinand may not be breaking their own mold, but they could have a positive effect on listeners. And who knows? Maybe they’ll surprise us all next time around.

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