Franz Ferdinand - Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

Oh, you pretty things

When preparing to record a new album, practially every band, trundles out the line, “It’s going to sound different to anything we’ve done before.” Franz Ferdinand, who started work on this, their third album, back in 2007, were no exception.

Funny, because what you get remains intrinsically FF: taut and dance-infused, yet still rock. Sure, you can lace it with pop producers (Girls Aloud’s Brian Higgins had a crack at some tracks last year, but nothing came of it), but it’s really business as usual for these Glaswegians

Thankfully, business is good – really good at points, in fact. Away from the too numerous mid-tempo rockers, What She Came For, single Ulysses and, particularly, the massively catchy Dream Again are streets ahead of their nearest contemporaries such as White Lies. When things slow down, as on Send Him Away and Katherine Kiss Me (which is rumoured to use a human skeleton as percussion), Alex Kapranos’ voice is vital. Your views on Lucid Dreams, however, a standard FF number that mutates, somewhat embarrassingly but nevertheless audaciously into late 90s techno, will depend on your age.

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

Domino | WIGCD 205

Reviewed by Jake Kennnedy
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