Franz Ferdinand 'Tonight' Album Review

I find it quite fascinating that such success should fall into the lap of a band who make it their career choice to offer up a reflection, albeit a convincing one, of the artistic output of Talking Heads. Bizarre and intermittently wonderful – Franz Ferdinand have made a peculiarly enthralling record, but a little like their influences' punk/funk oddities, how it works remains a mystery.

Gone is the oddly appealing gawky scratchiness of their debut... make way for bouncy synth bass! Not quite dance floor fodder, not quite edgy indie, Tonight is a weird record. It doesn’t quite fit the image – slightly nerdy looking Scottish blokes shouldn’t make music like this. But apparently they do.

The single, 'Ulysses’ is innately catchy and the distorted, crunchy riff that kicks 'Turn It On’ into touch is obvious, but brilliant. The down side? High impact gives way to repetition and after a few listens, the excitement wears thin. 'Live Alone’ doesn’t help either, a song which begs the question 'why?, sounds a bit too much like The Stranglers and irritates like an annoying itch you can’t reach, it ends up suggesting itself as the blueprint for a lot of the songs here and should have just been left alone.

Nevertheless, a very British album of songs about seedy nights in sweaty clubs, Tonight pretty neatly and subversively sums up the denial of a country on the edge without resorting to 'I predict a riot' cliché – quite right, knock that anarchistic ideology on the head and replace it with the vastly more accurate cynicism of 'I’m bored, c’mon, let’s get high'. The stupidly sad irony is that, even if it is social commentary, it’ll probably end up a slogan.

reviewed by Owen Gillham