By Stephanie Danis
Staff Writer, ‘11

“You say you don’t know..take me out!” I say, impossible! “Take Me Out.” Franz Ferdinand’s 2004 hit was played incessantly on all the top rock, pop stations, it was placed #16 on NME’s “Greatest Indie Anthems Ever” list, and is featured in video games like Singstar Party and Guitar Hero.

Personally, Franz is a band that before the “Tonight” album I would have deemed “take it or leave it”, but now I can’t help but want to advertise their music like any other well-conditioned super fan. The Franz boys, after working on their latest album for two years, figured out the formula to a successful dance rock album. Released on January 27th in the United States through Epic Records, this album has the stamina to eventually top the 2009 “Best Of” lists.

The album starts with the single “Ulysses” and the momentum escalates for five tracks until, it hits “Twilight Omens,” the synthesized definition (they use lots of synthesizers) of a raging dance party track. The drumbeats on “Twilight Omens” pair up somehow with the anthem-like “What She Came For,” and the track in between; “Bite Hard” is a relaxed rock and roll bass heavy sound.

The songs on this album are tightly arranged, and the band creates a story by introducing a theme in “No You Girls.” Lead singer Alex Kapranos sings, “Girls never know how you make the boy feel,” normally one would expect him to repeat this until the track fades out. But this song has three different choruses linked together by a killer bass line. The song ends, “ Boys never care how the girls feel.” Only by the end of the album do we realize the significance of the change in chorus.  On the mellow, acoustic track “Katherine Kiss Me” Kapranos sings, “Do you ever wonder how the boy feels?”

With the song “Lucid Dreams” Franz bestows on us an eight-minute long “Beatles-esque” pop jam, not common on contemporary dance rock albums.  Franz Ferdinand carefully examined the work of their predecessors, and they made a rock album that is romantic, sexy, and unique to our times. The lyrics provide us with numerous subtleties that will take at least ten to fifteen listens before they are unearthed. The freshness of this record might be just what we need to get out of the funk over our tired run down economy, the repetitive pop rock bands on rotation on every commercial radio station, and Valentine’s Day around the corner. I predict that this album will provide the dance music that will keep us grooving through the next year!