FRANZ FERDINAND
You Could Have It So Much Better… with Franz Ferdinand
Domino
directors' cut, Blender, 2005
by Simon Reynolds
In an early short story by Ian McEwan, a female novelist struggles to follow up her acclaimed, best-selling debut. The psychologically macabre twist in the tale comes when it’s revealed that the manuscript she’s been toiling over for months is actually a painstakingly typed-out, word-for-word reiteration of the first book. Now, You Could Have It So Much Better is far from a note-for-note duplicate of Franz Ferdinand. Still, for a band dedicated to the resurrection of arty pop, there are surprisingly few risks taken on their sophomore album. It used to be a matter of honor for art-rockers to make giant leaps with each successive record. But on You Could Have, the attitude seems to have been “let’s not mess with a winning formula, lads, shall we?”
As formulas go, it’s a winsome one: brittle white-boy funk topped by Alex Kapranos’ suavely crooned vocals and witty, sexually piquant lyrics. Franz are master exponents of that distinctly British forte for using abrasive guitars in a way that feels pop rather than rock. And they’re equally adept at that other Britpop ploy whereby fey young men seduce the girls in the audience by acting like they’re really more interested in boys. Last time, it was the bisexual epiphany of “Michael”; this time, it’s the homo-erotic ardor of “This Boy” and the saucy boast “your famous friend/well I blew him before you” in “Do You Want To.” A glorious, gleeful romp jam-packed with quotables, that song is the album’s strongest stab in Franz’s main mode of oddly fussy, flustered discopunk, closely followed by “The Fallen” and “I’m Your Villain” (one section of which actually recycles the riff from “Take Me Out”).
In a rockier vein, “Evil And A Heathen” stomps like Iggy Pop circa Lust For Life. But You Could Have’s only real departure is “Fade Together,” a piano ballad whose ebbing waltz-time rhythm gorgeously matches the langorous nihilism of the lyric, which could be about a suicide pact, or sharing a needle, but either way is alluring and disturbing in equal measure.
“Fade” is far and away the best thing on the record, in large part because it’s the least Franz Ferdinand-like. The song makes you wonder what this group could achieve if they actually pushed themselves, and the envelope, a wee bit, in the spirit of the art-rock ancestors--Roxy, Bowie, Wire, Gang of Four, Josef K--they either invoke or echo sonically. Art-into-pop should be about vision and ambition, over-reach and the possibility of falling flat on your face. So here’s hoping for a torturously difficult third album.
Monday, January 3, 2011
ART BRUT
Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Banana Recordings/Fierce Panda import
Blender, 2005
by Simon Reynolds
In 2005, few things could be less “rock’n’roll” than playing rock’n’roll. Real estate speculation, starting a restaurant, modern art--all have stronger claims to the cutting edge. Yet rock groups infest the land, fresh droves of them arriving each month bearing ever stupider names. “Formed A Band,” the opening track on the debut album by London’s Art Brut (not actually a stupid name, always a good sign), hilariously skewers the presumptuousness of taking the stage and demanding attention like it’s a birth right. Yet tangled up inside the self-mocking chorus--“look at us, we formed a band!”--there’s a primal yelp of idiot-glee. Almost despite itself, the song exalts the exuberance and cameraderie of ganging up with your mates to make noise.
Dark droning punk with a twist of Wiry weirdness, “Formed” also recalls Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild”, in the sense that this is the group’s defining, all-too-perfect song, the immaculate mission statement Art Brut may have problems surpassing. Hitting the listener with your best shot straightaway is a strategic blunder in terms of album sequencing, but there’s plenty of further excitements within Bang Bang. “My Little Brother” is shouty ‘n’ jumpy New Wave with another funny lyric, about being embarrassed by a younger sibling who’s only “just discovered rock’n’roll” and throws spazzy shapes on the dancefloor. On the title track, singer Eddie Argos demands “no more songs about sex and drugs and rock’n’roll/It’s boring,” while “Bad Weekend” mournfully confesses “popular/culture/no longer/applies to me.” But Bang Bang isn’t wall-to-wall meta. “Emily Kane” pines for a long-lost girlfriend (although Argos does imagine the song being such a hit that “kids on buses” will be “singing your name”) and “Rusted Guns of Milan” is an oblique account of erectile dysfunction, suffused with a hangdog seediness faintly reminiscent of Pulp.
On the downside, Argos’ half-spoken delivery means he sometimes seems to operate “outside” the music, in the mode of punk poets such as Jim Carroll and John Cooper Clarke, rather than in the thick of it, while the Art Brut sound occasionally verges on merely mundane liveliness. At their slightest, Art Brut come over like indie-rock’s equivalent to The Darkness (in “Good Weekend” Argos even eggs on Chris Chinchilla’s solo with a “go guitar!,” just like Justin Hawkins on “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”). But at their most thrilling, Art Brut fuse the spiky cool of Elastica with the witty self-consciousness of an LCD Soundsystem. They mean it, sort of, maaaaan.
Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Banana Recordings/Fierce Panda import
Blender, 2005
by Simon Reynolds
In 2005, few things could be less “rock’n’roll” than playing rock’n’roll. Real estate speculation, starting a restaurant, modern art--all have stronger claims to the cutting edge. Yet rock groups infest the land, fresh droves of them arriving each month bearing ever stupider names. “Formed A Band,” the opening track on the debut album by London’s Art Brut (not actually a stupid name, always a good sign), hilariously skewers the presumptuousness of taking the stage and demanding attention like it’s a birth right. Yet tangled up inside the self-mocking chorus--“look at us, we formed a band!”--there’s a primal yelp of idiot-glee. Almost despite itself, the song exalts the exuberance and cameraderie of ganging up with your mates to make noise.
Dark droning punk with a twist of Wiry weirdness, “Formed” also recalls Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild”, in the sense that this is the group’s defining, all-too-perfect song, the immaculate mission statement Art Brut may have problems surpassing. Hitting the listener with your best shot straightaway is a strategic blunder in terms of album sequencing, but there’s plenty of further excitements within Bang Bang. “My Little Brother” is shouty ‘n’ jumpy New Wave with another funny lyric, about being embarrassed by a younger sibling who’s only “just discovered rock’n’roll” and throws spazzy shapes on the dancefloor. On the title track, singer Eddie Argos demands “no more songs about sex and drugs and rock’n’roll/It’s boring,” while “Bad Weekend” mournfully confesses “popular/culture/no longer/applies to me.” But Bang Bang isn’t wall-to-wall meta. “Emily Kane” pines for a long-lost girlfriend (although Argos does imagine the song being such a hit that “kids on buses” will be “singing your name”) and “Rusted Guns of Milan” is an oblique account of erectile dysfunction, suffused with a hangdog seediness faintly reminiscent of Pulp.
On the downside, Argos’ half-spoken delivery means he sometimes seems to operate “outside” the music, in the mode of punk poets such as Jim Carroll and John Cooper Clarke, rather than in the thick of it, while the Art Brut sound occasionally verges on merely mundane liveliness. At their slightest, Art Brut come over like indie-rock’s equivalent to The Darkness (in “Good Weekend” Argos even eggs on Chris Chinchilla’s solo with a “go guitar!,” just like Justin Hawkins on “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”). But at their most thrilling, Art Brut fuse the spiky cool of Elastica with the witty self-consciousness of an LCD Soundsystem. They mean it, sort of, maaaaan.
LIARS
They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top
Blast First/Mute
Uncut, 2002
by Simon Reynolds
On the face of it, there’s no reason why LIARS’s brand of retro is superior to, say, The Hives’s. The former echo Gang of Four and The Fall; the latter are the latest in a long lineage of garage punk rehash that includes Fleshtones, Scientists, Billy Childish, and countless others. 1979 versus 1966: is there really a difference? Well, I’d argue that the post-punk template LIARS draw on is way more open-ended and possibility-rich than the narrow set of archival resources that fuel The Hives. And that those 1979-82 reference points are simply fresher: this is the first time post-punk has been rediscovered, whereas with the garage punk re-re-revival, pop has eaten these portions of itself several times already, the cud is thrice-chewed and flavourless.
New York’s LIARS are just one of a small swarm of American bands inspired by 1979-and-all-that. Others of note include The Rapture (check the "At Home He Feels Like A Tourist" disco-punk of their ace "House of Jealous Lovers" 12 inch), Erase Errata (steeped in untypical girl groups like Slits, Delta 5, Ut), and Radio 4 (named after a Metal Box tune, but sadly sounding nothing like that Satie-esque anomaly in PiL’s oeuvre). As for LIARS, they’re a bit like Gang of Four’s Entertainment played with a Birthday Party-like looseness (or "Loose"-ness, given the Aussie group’s debts to Funhouse-era Stooges). The fractious, backfiring rhythm guitar and the punk-funking pummel of the bass ‘n’ drums are sourced in Entertainment songs like "Natural’s Not In It". But the feel is less anally clenched than Go4, more Butthole-surfing: live, this band really kick out the jams.
"Mr Your On Fire Mr" is the stand-out here, with its stop-start groove, cowbell clatter and funky flurry of mechanical handclaps. "Tumbling Walls Buried Me in the Debris With ESG" (the title presumably nodding to legendary New York mutant disco outfit ESG, once hailed as PiL meets The Supremes), is close behind, its brittle fatback drum circling a doomstruck bassline that could be off Junkyard or Unknown Pleasures. And just as the Andy Gill homage starts to get a little stale, final track "This Dust Makes That Mud" showcases a whole other dimension to the band, its hypnotic, drug-hazy drone redolent of Queens of the Stone Age at their most motorik and Can-like. Eight minutes into its life, the song devolves into a locked groove riff that takes up the entire remainder of the CD (quite a lot because Trench is a short and punchy LP) and whose stuporous effect is so potent this reviewer woke up glazed and groggy with his forehead all qwerty-ed with the imprint of the computer keyboard.
Tranced-out narcosis is not what LIARS are really about, though: they’re a jolt of hyper-alert tension, a real anxiety-rush. Angus Andrew’s vocals, Anglo-accented (he’s actually Australian) and frequently distorted as if declaimed through a loudhailer, are hectoring yet opaque, M.E. Smith-stylee. Which brings up the big difference between ‘79 and ‘02: the original post-punk groups, operating in a highly politicized context, coming fresh from punk and burdened with its imperatives to change and confrontation, were much more upfront and direct about their critique. There’s a sense in which today’s wave of post-punk influenced groups are totally wired and fired by the idea of agit-prop and dissidence, but it’s not nearly so clear what inspires their ire, or whether they’ll ever find a context that lends their struggle any resonance. For now, though, LIARS transmit a powerful aura of commitment and militancy: mission implacable, if impenetrable. And They Threw Us All In A Trench is one of the most adrenalizing albums you’ll hear this year.
LIARS
Liars
Mute
Blender
by Simon Reynolds
Easily the most impressive of the recent swarm of postpunk-inspired groups, Liars have always strived to make music in that era’s adventurous spirit, rather simply replicating the sound of vintage futurism from 25 years ago. Unfortunately that made their last two albums easier to admire than enjoy. Now the Brooklyn-exiled-to-Berlin band have dropped their (avant) guard a bit and conquered their retrophobia with an album that risks reminding you of things from rock history you already like. So the big bashy drums and war-whoops of “Plaster Casts of Everything” recall Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” while the Gothtronica of “Houseclouds” resemble Love and Rockets remodeled for Generation Ecstasy. “Pure Unevil” even doubles the retro effect, harking back to Jesus and Mary Chain’s circa 1985’s Psychocandy ploy of submerging perfect Sixties melody in a murky crypt of dank reverb. Liars’s trademark experimental touches--the crunchily processed beats and glass-splinter textures--are still present, but they’re now put in service of songs and grooves. The result is their most straight-up entertaining record, riddled with moody hooks that lodge in your memory like brain-worms.
They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top
Blast First/Mute
Uncut, 2002
by Simon Reynolds
On the face of it, there’s no reason why LIARS’s brand of retro is superior to, say, The Hives’s. The former echo Gang of Four and The Fall; the latter are the latest in a long lineage of garage punk rehash that includes Fleshtones, Scientists, Billy Childish, and countless others. 1979 versus 1966: is there really a difference? Well, I’d argue that the post-punk template LIARS draw on is way more open-ended and possibility-rich than the narrow set of archival resources that fuel The Hives. And that those 1979-82 reference points are simply fresher: this is the first time post-punk has been rediscovered, whereas with the garage punk re-re-revival, pop has eaten these portions of itself several times already, the cud is thrice-chewed and flavourless.
New York’s LIARS are just one of a small swarm of American bands inspired by 1979-and-all-that. Others of note include The Rapture (check the "At Home He Feels Like A Tourist" disco-punk of their ace "House of Jealous Lovers" 12 inch), Erase Errata (steeped in untypical girl groups like Slits, Delta 5, Ut), and Radio 4 (named after a Metal Box tune, but sadly sounding nothing like that Satie-esque anomaly in PiL’s oeuvre). As for LIARS, they’re a bit like Gang of Four’s Entertainment played with a Birthday Party-like looseness (or "Loose"-ness, given the Aussie group’s debts to Funhouse-era Stooges). The fractious, backfiring rhythm guitar and the punk-funking pummel of the bass ‘n’ drums are sourced in Entertainment songs like "Natural’s Not In It". But the feel is less anally clenched than Go4, more Butthole-surfing: live, this band really kick out the jams.
"Mr Your On Fire Mr" is the stand-out here, with its stop-start groove, cowbell clatter and funky flurry of mechanical handclaps. "Tumbling Walls Buried Me in the Debris With ESG" (the title presumably nodding to legendary New York mutant disco outfit ESG, once hailed as PiL meets The Supremes), is close behind, its brittle fatback drum circling a doomstruck bassline that could be off Junkyard or Unknown Pleasures. And just as the Andy Gill homage starts to get a little stale, final track "This Dust Makes That Mud" showcases a whole other dimension to the band, its hypnotic, drug-hazy drone redolent of Queens of the Stone Age at their most motorik and Can-like. Eight minutes into its life, the song devolves into a locked groove riff that takes up the entire remainder of the CD (quite a lot because Trench is a short and punchy LP) and whose stuporous effect is so potent this reviewer woke up glazed and groggy with his forehead all qwerty-ed with the imprint of the computer keyboard.
Tranced-out narcosis is not what LIARS are really about, though: they’re a jolt of hyper-alert tension, a real anxiety-rush. Angus Andrew’s vocals, Anglo-accented (he’s actually Australian) and frequently distorted as if declaimed through a loudhailer, are hectoring yet opaque, M.E. Smith-stylee. Which brings up the big difference between ‘79 and ‘02: the original post-punk groups, operating in a highly politicized context, coming fresh from punk and burdened with its imperatives to change and confrontation, were much more upfront and direct about their critique. There’s a sense in which today’s wave of post-punk influenced groups are totally wired and fired by the idea of agit-prop and dissidence, but it’s not nearly so clear what inspires their ire, or whether they’ll ever find a context that lends their struggle any resonance. For now, though, LIARS transmit a powerful aura of commitment and militancy: mission implacable, if impenetrable. And They Threw Us All In A Trench is one of the most adrenalizing albums you’ll hear this year.
LIARS
Liars
Mute
Blender
by Simon Reynolds
Easily the most impressive of the recent swarm of postpunk-inspired groups, Liars have always strived to make music in that era’s adventurous spirit, rather simply replicating the sound of vintage futurism from 25 years ago. Unfortunately that made their last two albums easier to admire than enjoy. Now the Brooklyn-exiled-to-Berlin band have dropped their (avant) guard a bit and conquered their retrophobia with an album that risks reminding you of things from rock history you already like. So the big bashy drums and war-whoops of “Plaster Casts of Everything” recall Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” while the Gothtronica of “Houseclouds” resemble Love and Rockets remodeled for Generation Ecstasy. “Pure Unevil” even doubles the retro effect, harking back to Jesus and Mary Chain’s circa 1985’s Psychocandy ploy of submerging perfect Sixties melody in a murky crypt of dank reverb. Liars’s trademark experimental touches--the crunchily processed beats and glass-splinter textures--are still present, but they’re now put in service of songs and grooves. The result is their most straight-up entertaining record, riddled with moody hooks that lodge in your memory like brain-worms.
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