Franz Ferdinand Tonight Review
Indie Stars Follow Up You Could Have It So Much Better CD With More
Apr 8, 2009
Glaswegian indies Franz Ferdinand rocked onto the dancefloor in 2004 with their infectious double tempo track “Take Me Out”. Their career skyrocketed from there with follow up singles, and the homoerotic dance invitation “Michael”.
A year later their follow up album appeared. You Could Have It So Much Better, the title of their rushed second release told the story straight. Their sophomore suffered from being issued too fast and sounding too similar to their debut.
On their third album of new material, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, the band has everything in check - great tunes, danceable beats, interesting lyrics as well as swirls of looping electronics that beg the question “is this rock or is this dance”?
Like The Killers, Franz Ferdinand have been treading a fine line between the dancefloor and the rock arena without neatly fitting into either genre completely yet appealing to both sides of the fence (in more ways than one).
Bite Hard
Franz Ferdinand caused a stir in the UK when they reported that they were using human bones bought at an auction as drumsticks. "We put the teeth in a glass jar and rattled that about. We smacked the ribs together and we got this really weird, f--ked up kind of a sound that was wicked,” frontman Alex Kapranos told Yahoo Music UK of the bone incident.
Despite this revelation and the four year gap between albums, the band chose comfort over experimentation. Tonight: Franz Ferdinand offers nothing new. Fans of the first two albums have plenty to sink their teeth into here, from the fun gender blurring “No You Girls” to the retro beat of “What She Came For”, and surf guitar of “Bite Hard”, but for most of the album, Franz Ferdinand revisit their old tricks.
Lucid Dreams
Before the album appeared Franz Ferdinand declared that the new album would contain more keyboards for a much dancier sound. This revelation holds true on retro-glam tunes “Live Alone”, “Can’t Stop Feeling” and the nearly eight minute extended version of “Lucid Dreams” – truly one of the album’s highlights.
While most of the album follows the same vein as their previous two albums, towards the end Franz Ferdinand glue on a duo of tracks that sound unlike anything they’ve recorded previously. “Dream Again”, one of the darker tracks on the album with a spaceman-like vocal propels the band to a higher level of weirdness.
The album then cools down with “Katherine Kiss Me”, seemingly a response to “No You Girls”, a stripped down voice / guitar folky tune that shows a different side of the band without getting caught up in over production.
While Tonight: Franz Ferdinand doesn’t offer much in the line of experimentation, this solid album showcases the band doing what they do best – make great tunes for the rockier side of the dancefloor.
Tonight: Franz Ferdinand is available now on iTunes and Amazon.com.
Additional source: Yahoo Music UK
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