Tonight by Franz Ferdinand

Whether you believe it is based on talent or pure good timing, as a band who slightly preceded the indie craze, Franz Ferdinand are revered as one of the better bands of recent years. Despite only being on the scene for five years, the Scottish four piece have for one reason or another, become elder statesmen of the indie scene. However, with long awaited third album Tonight, we see that sadly they aren’t the innovators many confused them for.

When Kapranos and Ko. first appeared in 2004, they were young, new and different. The mission statement that was debut single ‘Take Me Out’, gave British rock fans a band they could throw their arms around. However, whilst their first two releases were brimming with promise, they were by no means excellent. Tonight sees Franz Ferdinand content with their style, meaning the album features barely a song that deviates from their punchy riff heavy sound. To put it in a nifty rhyming couplet, they replicate where they should innovate.

With the opener ‘Ulysses’ you are lured into a false sense of security. The song’s pounding bass and subtle synth gives it all the quirkiness that we’ve come to expect, yet indicative of how disappointing this album is, few of the remaining eleven tracks even approach this frankly mediocre song.

The aptly named album seems to portray the brief moments of beauty, which emerge in a sea of sex, drugs and sleaze, yet the funky aesthetic employed to represent this is an obvious and tiresome choice. On such tracks as ‘No You Girls’ and ‘What She Came For’, the band approach the genre in a painfully clinical way, which only highlights their musical naivety.

Conscious of the innovation they are expected to produce, the band do make several attempts at genre fusion, yet once again these emerge as another of the album’s weaknesses. The techno epilogue of ‘Lucid Dreams’ or the piano intro of ‘Bite Hard’, only tease the listener with creating an insight into how good the album could have been. Appearing at the beginning or end of the track, these brief spasms of pastiche often upstage the song itself, leaving one to wonder if incorporating these into the main structure, would have provided the variety and innovation this album so desperately needs.

Alas the cynic in me doth despair, as indeed the album is not a lost cause. The likes of ‘Twilight Omens’ do in part breathe new life into the Franz form, yet even the most promising tracks never quite approach greatness. It would seem the band have exhausted their stripped down structure, as the shortcomings of Kapranos’ lyricism means that there is simply nothing to fill the gap the music leaves.

Don’t get me wrong, Franz Ferdinand aren’t nearly annoying enough to spark my dislike, but Tonight remains an album only hardcore fans will enjoy. For all the promise and for all the hype the long wait has created, all albums are essentially a sum of their parts, and when you add poor lyricism, with mediocre song composition and a staunch refusal to do anything interesting; you get Tonight by Franz Ferdinand.