“Well do ya...do you want to, want to go where I never let you before?” Alex Kapranos muses over a slew of dancing guitars and a catchy-as-cancer beat. He seems to be casually inviting the listener to “Come experiment with Franz Ferdinand as we develop a fuller, more interesting sound!” And while this is not completely uncharted territory, (the dance-hall post-punk guitar rock isn’t exactly a reach for them) they have certainly added depth and variety to their music.
The album kicks off with a bang, “The Fallen,” an introduction to a more rocking, angry Franz. “What’s wrong with a little destruction?” snorts an always-ironic Kapranos. Well there’s nothing wrong with it, as long as the music keeps heads bopping and toes tapping. And for the most part it does. Songs like the “This Boy” and “Evil and a Heathen” along with much of the album sound like the Franz Ferdinand we all know and love, rich, bombastic and slightly mischievous.
Exciting as those tracks are, the most interesting developments are the departures from old Franz. Sticking out like a sore thumb is “Eleanor Put Your Boots On.” Though the title alludes to a well documented relationship with a certain Fiery Furnace, the piano-driven and somewhat somber song sounds more like an ode to Brooklyn as Kapranos sings about odd landmarks in a way that only a foreigner living in New York could. The change of pace serves the album well, a quick and pretty breather from the stomping beat of most of the album.
That’s not to say that the whole album stomps along. The strongest song, “Walk Away” starts out as a melancholy break up song, replete with soft backing vocals and a gentle guitar cradling a lonesome voice singing “I love the sound of you walking away.” But then the song shifts gears as everything screeches to a halt and comes crashing together alternating between bitterness and confidence. Then the song fades out and right into the plowing guitar of “Evil and a Heathen.” The juxtaposition of the two songs heightens the bitter sentiments in each.
Like driving a stick-shift, the changes in tempo on this album are swift and strong. There’s a lot of them too, which work with varying degrees of success. While the shifts in “Walk Away” and “Do You Want To” make the songs more interesting, other ones leave you wondering why. In “Well That Was Easy” the shift is about as smooth as a car smacking into a break wall— I had to rewind to make sure it wasn’t skipping— but it serves very little purpose.
Despite its little mishaps, You Could Have It So Much Better With… is a strong album that will keep dancing in your head for days. Like its predecessor it is an album of irresistible pop songs, and it shows promising things from these lads from Scotland.
|