Franz Ferdinand- “Tonight: Franz Ferdinand”

It’s been a long time coming, this here third Franz Ferdinand album. They may have stormed British popular culture with two highly successful albums in two years but after four years in relative oblivion, does anyone still care about four guys who were already the “wrong” side of 30?

Yes, of course they do. Silly question.

“Tonight: Franz Ferdinand” begins with the leading single, “Ulysses”. The song begins life creeping around like a sexy little beast on the prowl in Soho before spiralling into a synth led stomper built on tension and anticipation. By the time the chorus kicks in, you can practically hear Alex Kapranos stamping his shoe heel on an old theatre stage, sense his lip curl mischievously and see him shaking his hips and doing the can-can. This really is a brilliant all singing, all dancing electro pop song revelling in all its own glory.

Much of the album continues in this vein- camp pop splattered with dark, scuzzy basslines and blasts of electro synths. At first, this may seem like something of a departure, however it’s with the classic Franz formula that the likes of “Take Me Out” and “Do You Want To?” were made from that this heady, gloriously intoxicating disco sound is built upon.

“Tonight: Franz Ferdinand” is the sound of a one band cabaret which takes the listener through the history of great pop music. From the sound of Ian Dury moving his body in a seedy London bar (“No You Girls”) to the Beatles experimenting with pop during the White Album (“Bite Hard”) by the way of Donna Summer’s ecstatic groans (“Live Alone”), this is a time spanning album.

Each and every guitar line, vocal hook, bass part, drum fill and synth riff is carefully constructed and placed within a song to create something that cannot be bettered, by addition or subtraction, in terms of making up one of the catchiest, danciest and popiest packages of fun right now. Franz could almost have become clinical and calculating with their orderly pop structures, as it is though, the album bounces from groove to groove with style, sophistication and elegance.

“Tonight: Franz Ferdinand” drips with horny, seedy riffs and oozes blasé confidence. Those who compare it to past outings by the band are really missing the point. This is an album which stands on its own feet- it is a swirling, flirtatious collection of songs to drink and dance to and one very much worth the wait.

No You Girls

http://www.myspace.com/franzferdinand