Franz Ferdinand - Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action
The fourth LP from the Austro-Hungarian archduke, Right Thoughts comes over four years after their last effort. Things were getting pretty desperate: Tonight wasn't quite strong enough to tide us over for much longer, and their extensive touring and small online presence - they tweeted just 11 times in 2011, and half of those were retweets of Kapranos - left me a little worried. But 2013 is the year of suave, sophisticated gents making comebacks after all (Suede, Bowie, Vampire Weekend), and after a busy workload of production with the world's funkiest Norwegian Todd Terje, loveliest Swede [Peter] Björn [and John] Yttling, and sadly not-very-Scandinavian-at-all Hot Chip, they are back and almost better than before.
Of course, they lost that spark for surefire crossover hit singles like Matinee and Do You Want To a while back, but what's left in its place is no less fantastic. Opener 'Right Action' - the Hot Chip production - is an organ-led funk number that, whilst far from the best effort to come on this LP, gets the right mood going. Things take a turn for the spooky on 'Evil Eye' and its B-movie inspired music video with all sorts of weird gore going on; the track itself is a jittery, paranoid wonder that finds Kapranos observing "some people get a freak out of me". The album's greatest hook comes courtesy of 'Love Illumination', a sort of Black Keys-like disco/glam-rock crossover that belies the joys and loneliness of casual sex. "If you need somebody to love you/ While you're looking for somebody to love", he offers, and who would say no? Ahem.
It gets even funkier on 'Stand on the Horizon', where a case could be made for the band trying to be the spiritual successor to LCD Soundsystem. We'll see by the end of the year whether that claim sticks with them. "I am the cruellest man ever born", Kapranos smiles, and for a brief moment I'm almost certain I hear David Bowie. Surely not twice in a year. The dichotomy of fleeting love and impending death is never more apparent on 'Fresh Strawberries'; not the most subtle metaphor, but a welcome change of tone and rare glimpse of the band in uncertain territory ("Wouldn't it be easy to believe? I don't know what I need"). They pick up the pace again on 'Bullet', a truly British chunk of indie-rock thats energy hasn't really been seen on these shores since 2007.
The organs return for the remarkably unusual 'Treason! Animals.' that finds the band proclaiming "I'm a king so give me a crown". There's a smart and cute backwards love story on 'The Universe Expanded' that, whilst dark and morbid ("we move forwards/ into emptiness, into the void"), fights for some sense of optimism ("I'll meet you coming backwards"). By this point the band are positively celestial, and letting all sorts of high-pitched synths trespass on their token sound. In 'Brief Encounters' we find the group swapping car keys out of boredom, and on 'Goodbye Lovers and Friends' Kapranos bemoans pop music, bright colours and his own company ("don't give me virtues that I never had"). It's a pretty troubling and awkward set of situations all around, really, but it's rather engaging.
Right Thoughts makes for the most listenable and fun album of theirs since their debut. Whether or not it's their strongest is entirely down to perspective, but for me this is a misnomer in their discography in that there is not one weak song. It may well grow to be my favourite of theirs.
Rating: 8.5/10
Highlights: Stand on the Horizon; Love Illumination; Treason! Animals; Fresh Strawberries; Goodbye Lovers and Friends
Avoid: n/a
Artwork Watch: Not quite as fun as the Dad's Army titles.
Up next: The Weeknd
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