Bernell DorroughFranz Ferdinand
“Franz Ferdinand”
Domino Records
Grade: B+
You haven’t heard of Franz Ferdinand yet? Their debut self-titled record is only the most ridiculously hyped invention since the wheel, or at least the Segway. The Scottish quartet claims to carry on the tradition of its homeland’s post-punk bands, including Josef K and Orange Juice (I’d never heard of them either), and has promised, with its “Darts of Pleasure” EP and “Take Me Out” single, to deliver the 21st century’s hippest, artiest, newest-of-the-new-new-wave album yet.
And it really is great. The band is tight as hell, relying on piercing guitars, subtle keyboards and a robotic-yet-funky rhythm section. Just listen to “Take Me Out.” Distant vocals mumble over a Strokes-ish beginning section before the song breaks down into the best slow funk number since the Rapture’s “Out Of The Races And Onto The Tracks.” Their other big single, “Darts of Pleasure,” is a more up-tempo, high-tension song, with the Scottish lads doing their best Interpol impersonation and tacking on an amazing German coda. Ich heisse superfantastisch indeed!
Other winners include the opening “Jacqueline,” which goes from a Belle and Sebastian-like strummed intro to some of the album’s most intricate chops, and “Tell Her Tonight,” where Franz break it down with their most serpentine, slippery funk. As you can probably tell, most of the songs are about love and lust, which doesn’t leave much room for all that talk of being “art-damaged” and “post-punk.” Those words usually conjure up bands like Gang of Four, Wire, The Fall and newcomers Liars, but the closest Franz Ferdinand come to “deep” is “Matinee,” a weird but catchy story of fame, fortune and the ensuing miseries. The rest of the lyrics rarely get above elementary. Just sample the dumb chorus of “Take Me Out”: “I say, doncha know / You say, you don’t know / I say [long pause] TAKE ME OUT!” Mark E. Smith he ain’t. The songs also tend to get a bit repetitive, with the same hi-hat heavy drum beat anchoring almost all of them. But despite these shortcomings, “Franz Ferdinand” is consistently tight, catchy, and danceable. In terms of recent hype machine beneficiaries, they can’t touch the depth and musical prowess of Interpol, but it’s certainly a better party record than anything by the Strokes. Just have fun with it.
The Living End
Modern Artillery
Reprise Records
Grade: C+
One of Australia’s biggest rock bands, the Living End, return with their third full-length album and their third attempt to conquer the Stateside audience. With “Modern Artillery” the band sands away the edges that made them one of the more interesting bands of the punk revival, and the result is their worst album but probably their greatest chance for U.S. success.
Australian bands tend to be a bit more booze-soaked and raw than many of their British and American compatriots-see AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Radio Birdman, the Saints. On their first two albums, the Living End were as well. A trio with roots in the rockabilly scene-shown off through reverbed Gretsch guitar riffs and thumping upright bass-they played a pop-punk-rock mix that was interesting because it was unafraid to be sloppy. Leader Chris Cheney’s guitar heroics fit nicely into songs that, unlike most pop-punk tunes, allowed for expansive improvisation.
“Modern Artillery” gets rid of all of that. All of the songs are made for the radio, with the distortion and reverb almost gone from the guitar and the bass sounding just like any other band. There are still good, well-constructed pop songs here-the opener “What Would You Do?” and the first single “Who’s Gonna Save Us” stand up to any of their earlier material-but the guitar heroics, the rockabilly/surf experimentation and the anthemic gang choruses of previous releases have been abandoned.
All of this makes for a much more palatable package for fans of the Blink-182/Good Charlotte/Sum 41 axis, and those are the kids who buy albums in droves. But in their quest for marketability, the Living End have lost much of what made them better than those bands in the first place.
90 Day Men
“Panda Park”
Southern Records
Grade: A-
Post-rock bands are strange birds. Take the 90 Day Men, for instance. Once your typical Chicago math-rock outfit, the band added a piano player to the mix in 2001 and blossomed into a weird hybrid of Slint, 60s psychedelia and Elton John. Seriously, if Mr. Rocket Man had smoked a bit more dope or taken some hallucinogens, he might have sat down at the keys and created the beautiful, slowly unfolding compositions on “Panda Park.” Over the course of seven songs and 32 minutes, the 90 Day Men expand upon that 70s-rock-filtered-through-post-hardcore premise, and on the whole they make it work. This is an almost uncategorizable record that’s well worth your time.
“Even Time Ghost Can’t Stop Wagner” begins the album with an ascending/descending piano line that immediately screams “prog!” Rick Wakeman of Yes would no doubt approve of piano player Andrew Lansangan’s flamboyant flourishes. Brian Case’s vocals are, to use a well-worn voice description, caterwauling, with a wail that fits somewhere between Jeff Buckley and Cedric Bixler of At The Drive-In. The song slowly develops amidst loose, jazzy drumming and shifting time changes to arrive at an ominous counter-melody, and the band closes things after a lengthy instrumental coda. Case’s other vocal contribution, “Chronological Disorder,” is even trippier, with lyrics like, “Icarus idea fixe jabberwocky jargon / Jawed by jealous jaundiced jaguars, / Kinetic kaleidoscope knothole knoll kleptomania knavery.” Uhh, dude, I think the Mars Volta want their songbook back. This alphabetized song continues all the way to “T,” but the lyrics never get in the way; they simply function as another instrument in the steadily building mix of sound.
Case shares time on the album with two other vocalists, one of whom utilizes the typical hushed, breathy indie sound, while the other sings in a ridiculous, operatic vibrato. Luckily, this latter singer is prominent on only one song, the bombastic “Silver and Snow,” which is nonetheless yet another great tune, musically. The instrumental “Night Birds” is a fitting close to such a spaced-out record, beginning with a repetitive, trance-inducing rhythm and exploding into pounded piano keys, xylophone passages and furious handclaps. It leaves you wondering if you just witnessed a long-lost Frank Zappa piece, and it feels good. The 90 Day Men will be rolling through St. Louis on April 9, so check them out for an experimental experience.