What can one say about ‘Take Me Out,’ a song so highly (here comes that old music journalism fall-back) seminal for the scene of post-punk revivalists that caught fire the middle of this decade? So infectious was the hit, so repetitive it’s rhythm recalling the days of The Buzzcocks, so stylish and poncey was the attitude, Edwin Collins, Pete Shelly, and Paul Weller would all be proud. In ‘04, Franz Ferdinand had it all. Almost five years on, they are naturally attempting to relive the success of their first big single with Tonight: Franz Ferdinand. But on this third full-length studio set, the quartet tries their hand at being more than Modish Scotsmen. This time, Franz insist that they are raucous, late-night rabble-rousers.
Tonight kicks off with ‘Ulysses,’ a track that echos familiarity though singer Alex Kapranos’ signature hush-hush delivery and fuzzy, low-end taps from bassist Bob Hardy. But added are buzzsaw synths that scream something about the European techno revival of the past couple of years. ‘No You Girls’ seems fun, with jangly guitars, quite a few pedal variations and love-em-and-leave-em lyrics. But there’s that pesky synth again! Why is that when bands try to reinvent themselves they instantly go for the most obvious song additives (’Let’s buy a Korg!’)? It’s supposed to be about the beats. Where ’s the rhythm section here? Even The Happy Mondays had their drums up in the mix without the funny compression.
As the albums leads on, the formula seems obvious: take the basics of what Franz does best, which is rhythm and high drama, then insert ’something else’ (hard synths in this case), so that it looks like they really thought about how to do things differently’rinse and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. ‘Send Him Away’ starts of with a cool little swoosh sound, from one of many synths that were barely troubled during the course of production as they seem to jump in to the beginning and disappear immediately. ‘Can’t Stop Feeling’ follows the same formula with louder-than-God Casio goodness (again, rhythm section should be louder!) and on it goes.
This repetition is what Franz albums have always tended to do anyway. Except what the boys have never come to understand is their difficulty in deviating from rigid Brit-pop roots that always made them so darn adorable. A group this weird and quirky should be able to produce dozens of albums that never loose their delicious twee taste. Perhaps what FF should try next is trying nothing at all. Nothing ‘experimental’ or even ‘high-minded.’ We want to love them for who they are.
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