So we’re all so broke and bored that all we really wanna know about is this year’s NBT (Next Big Thing of course. Yawn). Or perhaps not, but as sure as debt follows Christmas, January is the month when another bunch of virtually unknowns are foisted upon us with realms of hyperbolic superlatives with that grotesquely offensive tag line, “this band will save your life” applied far too readily. Dunno about you, but if I’m in need of an ambulance its a dead cert that it won’t be some bunch of mollicoddled indie pin ups making the call.
But to be fair, this year’s model are a fine proposition. If you’ve been paying attention, Glaswegian quartet Franz Ferdinand will already be familiar to you as authors as one of the singles of 2003, the charming shuffle of ‘Darts of Pleasure’ with its marvellously memorable lyric, “You can feel my lips undress your eyes”. Unlike the singles of so many so-called great new bands, the b-sides were just as strong. Tellingly, unlike The Strokes and just about everybody else these days, they didn’t need to include them on their debut.
The press have already nominated Alex Kapronos (rock star name alert!), Nick McCarthy, Bod Hardy and Paul Thompson as potential inheritors to the New York five piece’s crown, and the influence of post - Is This It guitar pop is certainly writ large over the proceedings. But where the Strokes chug along pleasantly, Franz Ferdinand stop and start and inject their arrangements with totally unexpected little twists and flourishes. Second single’ Take Me Out’, which has just gatecrashed the UK top ten at number three, shows exactly how good they are and there are plently more where that came from. ‘Jacqueline’ shifts its tender ballad intro to a searing staccato rock monster,complete with one of the best choruses to crop up for a while, “Its always better on holiday / So much better on holiday / That’s why we only work when we need the money.”
While there are hints of The Smiths, a strong whiff of Talking Heads, the white disco of Blondie and primal elements of riff-tastic Led Zep, Franz Ferdinand are as un-derivative a band you’ll hear right now. In their early days the bands prided themselves on their stted aim to “to make music for girls” and the manifesto has paid off handsomely in sexy swaggering bucketloads, especially on the irresistable Krautrock shuffle of ‘Matinee’. They’re also the epitome of the rock n’ roll band as suburbanite romantics, penning odes to setting the bright lights on fire on ‘This City’. Only the closing number ‘40 Ft’ sounds a little underwhelming, purely by virtue of the outstanding flush of aces that precedes it.
Unlike the drugdgery of a lot of new rock renaissance crap, such as the perpetually over-rated Ravenonettes or the truly appalling Jet, Franz Ferdinand are original, intelligent and musically and academically literate, which is cause for celebration at a time when rock n’ roll, now in its navel gazing 50th anniversary year, is priding itself on being retro-obsessed and anti-intellectual.
Whilst I enjoy a drunken bop to The Darkness as much as the next man and woman, to argue that they’re the greatest thing on the block right now is nothing short of a downright insult to the artistry of so many great unsung heroes who have more talent in a single note than an army of preening Shoreditch phoneys. The roster of Franz Ferdinand’s record label Domino is a perfect example, and perhaps the guaranteed success of Franz Ferdinand could finance the making of a modern masterpiece or two in a similar manner to Is This It’s subsiding of a defining album like Trust by Low.
In an era when most majors would blow their winning lottery ticket on champagne and taxis, Franz Ferdinand are a timely reminder of the merits of independence and how you can still deliver a manic pop thrill that resonates outside indie saddo circles. Who knows what will happen to this lot after their current adventures, but for the moment this one will at least be burning down your house, if not your hometown.

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