Seattle Subsonic

Do People Still Like Franz Ferdinand?

November 19th, 2008

I ask this question sincerely, because I seem to remember their sophomore album, You Could Have It So Much Better, being a disappointment to many fans. Me being the lovable loyalist that I am (blame the Zodiac), I actually liked that hurried yet divergent follow up to the smash hit debut bonanza, Franz Ferdinand. And now that it’s been nearly four years since we’ve heard really anything from these sassy Scots, my curiousity remains: Do people still like Franz Ferdinand?

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Rhetorically speaking, the brand new cuts from the band may just make you stand up and scream, “HELL YES!” Really, the two songs that we’ve been thus far treated to (“Ulysses” was debuted on BBC Radio just this past Monday, and an apparently alternate version of “Lucid Dreams” was released in August) are reminiscent enough of their sultry, sinister dance punk to make fans of “Take Me Out” and “The Dark of the Matinee” squeal like they were guests on The Ed Sullivan Show.

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I’m not kidding, you pessimistic poo-bahs. Alex Kapranos, the slender man with the sleek, baritone voice, has mentioned that they took much longer to make Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, telling Rolling Stone that “we wanted to spend more time developing, and also, I suppose, allowing songs and sounds to evolve more before we ended up writing an album, and absorbing more music and ideas and, I suppose, life itself.” In a separate interview, he also mentioned that drummer Paul Thomson has been “listening to a lot of African stuff”. Whoa.

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Luckily, you can sample right here, right now, those two new songs. “Ulysses” is a mysterious, foot-stomping affair, beginning with Kapranos in a dark alley whispering about gettin’ high over a clickity-clack drum beat, before some bright, gurgly electro keys light up the rest of the band. Nick McCarthy’s stringent punk rhythms bridge the divide and catapult the chorus. “Lucid Dreams” blends funky synths again with tight, danceable guitar licks while Kapranos breaks down the walls of nationalism.

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Ulysses

Lucid Dreams

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There is a local slant to this post. Franz Ferdinand will be rolling through Portland’s Crystal Ballroom December 8th with the Cold War Kids. I saw them there back in 2004; the floor will be bouncing—literally. Sadly, no Seattle date (yet).