History is littered with bands bunking up their third album.Album one:record much played live set,album two:record songs left off one and some sparky new ones,album three.............errr what do we do next?
Tonight:Franz Ferdinand is the sound of a band losing and finding their way at the same time and it doesnt make for a happy ride.Single Ulysses is probably the closest they get to recreating the tightly knit duel guitar tracks of old but by christ what follows after that veers from the sublime to the unlistenable.Where the future lies is in tracks like Lucid Dreams which marry scratchy guitars with swathes of moog-like keyboards.Brilliant stuff reminiscent of Adam & the Ants' Dirk wears white sox.But this is one song.The next strongest No You Girls is a mash-up of M's Pop Music and Bowie's All you pretty things.And after that a couple of half decent attempts but the rest you wouldnt wave the proverbial shitty stick at they are that poor , Kapranos's voice struggling to find anything like the notes.Four years in waiting and not a good attempt.
Has the muse deserted them?Well no because the remix cd is ten times what the real album is and shows with a bit more nerve what could have been achieved.They should never have sacked Girls Aloud's producer!