50% hit rate for art popsters

(Morning Star, Friday 20 February 2009)

Album review

Franz Ferdinand, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
(Domino Records)

A LOVELY bunch of boys making the kind of angular artpop that fills indie disco floors and makes all the girls swoon, Franz Ferdinand are one of the better bands to come out of Britain in the last decade.

There's plenty to recommend them, but on this, their third studio album, it would be naive to avoid the obvious - there's something missing.

Oh, the singalong pop choruses are there. On No You Girls Never Know, Alex Kapranos's distinctive Scottish burr takes on a more overt Matinée style, drawling a disaffected "Kiss me/Flick your cigarette then kiss me" before pounding out the flawless chorus, "No you girls never know ... how you make a boy feel."

But for every Bite Hard, shot through with Nick McCarthy's signature jagged guitar, there's a Twilight Omens, uncomfortably bringing eau de Abba into the Franz fold, or worse, the instantly forgettable What She Came For.

With about a 50 per cent hit rate, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand is a success indeed in today's music climate.

But for these lovely boys, it's way off the mark from what fans have come to expect.