Before this review starts proper, allow me to give you a little history lesson, or rather let allmusic.com give you one
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Originally Posted by allmusic.com
Glasgow's art-damaged rock quartet Franz Ferdinand — named for the Austro-Hungarian Archduke whose murder sparked World War I — features bassist Bob Hardy, guitarist Nick McCarthy, drummer Paul Thomson, and singer/guitarist Alex Kapranos. In late 2001, Kapranos and Hardy had begun working on music together when they met McCarthy, a classically trained pianist and double bass player who originally played drums for the group despite no prior experience as a drummer. The trio had been rehearsing at McCarthy's house for a while when they met and started playing with Thomson, a former drummer for the Yummy Fur who felt like playing guitar instead. Eventually, McCarthy and Thomson switched to guitar and drums, and the band switched practice spaces, stumbling upon an abandoned warehouse that they named the Chateau
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Anyway, to the review!!
Franz Ferdinand’s 1st album caused a bit of a stir in Britain, with it spawning some great singles which IMO will be around forever
However, while a whole load of people think that this album is the best indie-pop album in years, I’d have to disagree, that title would have to go to the Futureheads’ self-titled, this however is still a solid acquisition for any person wishing to get into the indie-pop genre,
The first song on this album is Jacqueline, which begins with Alex singing with only Nick’s acoustic guitar as a compliment. The bass then comes in around the 45 second mark with the drums joining very soon after, Alex and Nick then join in the song with electric guitar instead. The mood of the song takes a very different twist here as the tempo increases and the melody changes, the song itself details a typical Glasgow night out, minus any fighting
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Originally Posted by Jacqueline
it’s always better on holiday, so much better on holiday
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One of the best songs on the album
4.5/5
Tell her tonight is, unfortunately, a filler track on this album with a repetitive guitar riff, repetitive drums and grating vocals, it doesn’t really do it for me. The truly annoying thing on this is Alex’s voice cannot reach some of the notes in this song which makes for a tingle going down your spine, and not a nice tingle at that.
2/5
Take me out is the
SECOND single from this album and is a very good song with Alex actually sticking to notes he CAN reach. The song starts of quite high tempo the slooowly comes down in speed, there isn’t a chorus in this song “per se” with the only change in lyrics in the main body of the song being “I know I won’t be leaving here with you” which, it has to be said, when the main body of the song is no master class in songwriting, it’s not a good idea to have your verses all the same
3/5
Matinee / The Dark of the Matinee is the third single to come off of this album and has all the elements of the pop smash hit. Catchy lyrics, catchy guitar, just… Catchy! And it’s one of these songs that catchy doesn’t = crap. I think this is a great song all around with the songwriting talents of Alex Kapranos really coming through, in fact, the songwriting is easily the main highlight of this song. I have been told that this was written about their shows at the “Château” but I’m not entirely sure.
3/5
Auf Achse is the best song on this album, bar none, with Nick McCarthy instead playing the keyboard and leaving Alex to play guitar, the drumming on this track is simple, simple, but effective as is the keyboard. It’s also evident why Alex isn’t the lead guitarist as this song left him a chance to shine on the guitar but his lyrical brilliance more than makes up for this lack of guitar brilliance, it’s also the longest track on this album, Clocking in at 4:20, 4:20 minutes of brilliance
5/5
Unfortunately, Cheating on you can’t keep up this brilliance as it suffers the same problems as take me out, a repetitive guitar riff which isn’t that good and boring vocals.
HOWEVER!! It is still not a terrible track, ok it’s not amazing but it is the song which gets the crowd going at one of their concerts and I speak from experience, it is unfortunately though, on the album, a filler track
2.5/5
This fire was the last single to come off of this album and it has to be said, is a very, very solid song. The guitar & Ride cymbal intro is very nice and Alex’s songwriting is still a strong point, as is Nick’s guitar play, like a lot of Franz Ferdinand material, simple, but effective. The song only has a few weak points, it’s main one being it could do with being a bit faster, apart from that a solid song
3.5/5
Darts of pleasure is the first single off of the album and is very different to the rest of the album in my opinion, simply because it’s got a very nice guitar riff and the bass is very predominant, also, the lyrics are a bit more mature on this song than on the rest of the songs on this album. The song is a very nice one to have at this point in the album as, unfortunately, you may be prepared to change to another album, so it’s placement is good as it’s so different to the rest of the tracks
3/5
If take me out showed Franz Ferdinand the limelight, Michael was the song that thrust them into it, unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons, this was a song that band wrote from (apparently) a gay man’s perspective, this however, lead the public to think that Alex Kapranos was the man concerned. The song itself is a very solid track with a catchy as hell guitar riff and, lets face it, the lyrics are good and showcase that Franz Ferdinand were not in the music game to be disposable pop music.
3/5
Come On Home is a song that you either love or hate, and in my case, I love it. The guitar even though it’s a bit repetitive, is quite good for rhythm guitar, Nick’s keyboard skills are also shown here and Alex actually gets a SOLO OPPORTUNITY! Which he uses to, lets guess, keep rhythm, however, Nick’s keyboard makes up for Alex’s inability to do anything exciting on guitar
3.5/5
40” is the last song on this album, and as a closing song, is very strong, the Palm muted guitar intro gives way to a different riff around the 20 second mark where Alex comes into the mix, this is a song that is really left to the rhythm section to carry the verses along and they do a good job in that. Alex’s obscure lyrics don’t take anything away from the song either, Nick still puts in a sterling shift on the keyboard while Alex actually takes his solo opportunity and doesn’t do a bad job.
3.5/5
So as you can see from this review this isn’t the best indie pop record on the market just now but it’s still a good album, the songs you really need to hear are:
Auf Achse
Jacqueline
And 40”
I hope you’ve found this useful, please take the opportunity to point out any little errors in this and please vote
--thank you—
, you bump your review when it's about to go off of the front page of new comments, but you come up with a coment that is worthwhile still.
