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Musicbox
Burning down the house
Let’s get one thing clear from the get-go: Scottish quartet Franz Ferdinand have nothing to do with World War I, Gavrilo Princip or Sarajevo, other than the fact that they share a moniker with the assassinated archduke of Austria-Hungary. Their sound is part-British invasion, part-new wave and part-Saturday morning cartoon soundtrack kitsch. Add to this already wacky equation Alex Kapranos’s unique vocal styling and you have an interesting rock and/or roll concoction on your hands.
Following up on their stellar Mercury Prize-winning 2004 debut record, FF return with You Could Have it so Much Better, a peppy little production clocking in at just over 40 minutes, with no song over five minutes in length. But short song spans isn’t why we like this record. That’s just part of it. The real secret to their success is that in this day and age when the guitar is more a bane than a creative boon, these wily Scotsmen ensure the old six-string is put to good use, while regurgitated the seminal sonic mantras of the past 40 years or so.
Frequent tempo changes are the band’s hallmark and first single Do You Want To stays true to form with some positively new wave, even disco-esque bass work. Listening to This Boy, with its jerky riff and vocals, makes it clear why comparisons with the Talking Heads arise. On Walk Away, with its jaded irony and pointed lyrics, Kapranos is almost deadpan in delivery, making the tune sound surprisingly heartfelt.
But don’t start the waterworks just yet as Evil and a Heathen channels gnarly rock’n’roll abandon in the vein of Iggy and his Stooges. Eleanor Put Your Boots On, both in arrangement, delivery and lyrical content, is the most Beatles-esque of all the tunes while I’m Your Villain even recycles the riff from Take Me Out, their breakthrough hit from the first record. Rounding off the album, Fade Together plays it off well as a tender piano ballad, surprisingly free of cheese while Outsiders features a great, droning guitar tone that sounds like it came from some sixties sci-fi TV show.
Through their avant-retro guitar tones, Franz Ferdinand escape the passé blandness most modern guitar bands get trapped into. These art school pretty boys have done well with superb production and short bursts of indie-punk energy that ensure things don’t stay the same for long. They hype has a sequel.—QAM
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