Albums and Abominations

By Benjamin Huber-Rodriguez     9/5/13 7:00pm

Ten years into its career, indie rock band Franz Ferdinand sings songs about playing the young man's game of attending dance clubs and cruising for girls, and it sounds like the group is damn good at it.  Unfortunately, it forgot how to play the game of its own youth: making good rock music. While Franz's earlier material contains slick observations and tales of everyday people, all sprinkled with late-night romance, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action demonstrates its development into the kind of club-rat songwriters it used to sing about - a most unwelcome transition.

Scotland's Franz Ferdinand first came to prominence in 2004 with its crossover hit "Take Me Out," featured on its eponymous self-titled debut album. That record was an intricate collection of stories set to Franz's trademark dance-rock grooves with a smattering of crunch in all the right places. In Right Thoughts, the Glasgow quartet's fourth LP, its sound has been stripped of its edginess, dynamics and tempo shifts, resulting in a run of 10 tracks so similar it can be difficult to tell when one ends and the next begins.   

The album starts out with "Right Action," a song about ending up with the girl you met the night before. As the title and opening track, it is weak but representative of the record to come. Lead singer Alex Kapranos' previously witty wordplay is reduced to, "This time, same as before, I'll love you forever," before the song devolves into a series of "Do-do-dos." The next track, "Evil Eye," describes a femme fatale at a club. "Love Illumination" is potentially an indie-rock "Blurred Lines," with none of the catchiness or creativity. "Well, you want to be loved / But nobody else seems to know." Seeing a pattern here?

---

---

To its credit, Franz maintains the professionalism and musicianship of a seasoned rock band. Its lineup has been consistent since the group's inception, and although it no longer tries for the fiery guitar solos and shotgun drum pickups of its yesteryear, the band still rocks its sound with togetherness and composure. Some of the disco-fused pop songs are great examples of the dance-rock crossover niche the group has carved out. "Fresh Strawberries," despite its dopey lyrics comparing lovers to fruit, stands out as the catchiest and strongest pure pop song, complete with swaying harmonies and funky guitar licks reminiscent of notable British acts like The Kinks or Blur. As good as Franz is at crafting these dance numbers, a failure to deviate from the formula leaves the album lacking additional

dimensions.  

Right Thoughts is Franz's first LP in four years, and its hiatus has resulted in a narrower scope in both sound and lyrics. Ten upbeat dance tracks, 10 songs about hazy Saturday night lovin'. The record is catchy and can be fun, but nothing on it comes close to the inventive highs of Franz's previous discography. On "Treason! Animals," Kapranos describes dance hall denizens as animals and proclaims himself king. Fitting, since the charades of characters in his songs more closely resemble shadows of beasts than any kind of human.

---