Music Review: Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Tonight’ catchy, brings new sound
Neither ‘third time’s a charm’ nor ‘odd man out’ really encapsulate the feel of the new album from Franz Ferdinand, although it is one of their best efforts to date.
“Tonight: Franz Ferdinand” is the Scottish group’s third effort after their smash self-titled debut in the summer of 2004 and the hasty follow up album titled “You Could Have It So Much Better With… Franz Ferdinand,” which was released just 19 months later.
The band has learned their lesson, the quality of “Tonight: Franz Ferdinand” suggests they spent a lot of time learning new musical tricks and how to implement them well.
It is easy to identify examples of tricks not heard in their previous work. “Lucid Dreams” and “Can’t Stop Feeling” use techno inspired synthesizers. A pregnant pause opens “Turn It On” and provides a false ending to “Send Him Away.”
A demo version of “Can’t Stop Feeling” was made available to the public via Franz’s official Web site before the release of their second album. The three to four years in the can that this track has spent have been extremely beneficial.
I remember when I first downloaded it as a demo in my sophomore year of high school, and I thought the track was a piece of garbage. A musician’s best friend, the computer, has helped out the once boring guitars and blood curdling vocals.
The lyrics to the verses may be questionable in content, but the choruses of Franz Ferdinand songs have always been the main attraction. “Twilight Omens,” which, despite a less-than-creative introductory verse, is so catchy, and its chorus is so much fun to sing, I cannot skip it.
“Katherine Kiss Me” is the last track and, like previous Franz releases that are slow and feature a piano solo, is really boring.
Songs like “Ulysses” and “What She Came For” use “La, la, la, la, la” in the chorus, “Ho Feet” off their last album, and are incredibly catchy like previous Franz works using the same technique.
Incredibly short instrumental intros keep the pace of the album moving. Franz has learned that the fastest way to the chorus is by getting the verse out of the way quickly. It takes an average of 12.3 seconds for singer Alex Kapranos to jump in on vocals.
This is an album worth buying when it comes out on Tuesday.
