Given that their last album Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Actions was effectively the sound of Franz Ferdinand pulling back from the brink total of total dissolution, it still sounded pretty much like Franz Ferdinand; whilst the press that surrounded its release was long on the restorative powers of open communications and positive dialogue, their knowing art-rock formula was thankfully the least effected aspect of the whole deal.
The five years since, by contrast, have seen some real change with guitarist Nick McCarthy ending his association with the band to spend time with his family. He’s been replaced, in fact, with not one but two new members, a statement of intent it seems with the happy couple being keyboard/man Friday Julian Corrie and the fabulously named new axeman Dino Bardot.
Also since last time out, the original line-up (stop us if this gets confusing) worked with the brothers Mael on their disco-operatic side project FFS, a diversion which earned the related parties plenty of new impetus but seemed, on songs like Johnny Delusional, not much more than the exact sum of their parts.
Now we’re all caught up it’s appropriate to look at Always Ascending, a record on which frontman Alex Kapranos has claimed the quintet have left things more to instinct rather than being slaves to what many outsiders would’ve seen as the classic Franz Ferdinand credo.
Pity first, however, the men dragged away on the useless guide ropes attached to the rogue airship USS Akron in 1931, their story now enshrined in immortality on the titular opening gambit. It’s not abundantly clear how this relates to the lines, “Waking up dry/waking up thirsty/bring me a cup/bring me water”, but after a mournful sounding piano intro Kapranos is back in his element, precision riffs familiarly extant, the band’s zesty hip shaking meter instantly recognisable.
So far, so pretty much 2008 then, but in a world where bands with guitars are trading them in for the stylised gloss of pop’s ebbing dimensions in an effort to stay relevant to its audience, on Huck & Jim the quintet play off an awkward time sequence and unexpected tempo shifts, riffing on the special relationship between Uncle Sam and Postman Pat on a drawling lilt about the NHS, custard with hard skin and Buckfast. It’s Always Ascending’s most abstract moment, but on Lois Lane they return to the lo-fi disco which has buttressed them against accusations of formulaic lock-in over the last decade and a half, a resort they pick up again on Glimpse Of Love.
There is, of course, a perfectly saleable not broke/don’t fix argument to be had, one that relates to identity and the strength to sustain this by choice in the disposable age. If you buy that, you’ll love Paper Cages and Lazy Boy, both continuations of the new wave/post-Postcard chops for which we bought into Take Me Out so heavily. But long-term admirers will hear change by filigree, a sense of nervousness that haunts Finally’s quieter passages, the almost country sway of The Academy Award and closer Slow Don’t Kill Me Slow’s candlelit, almost Radiohead-esque dramatic lack of hubris.
Change for its own sake is rarely a good idea, and the instances where this leads to good results can be counted on the fingers of even fewer hands. Always Ascending is no buffer record, but the sound of a new band coming to terms with its past as opposed to being slaves to it, or merely tossing their own legacy away in a fit of pique.
The results could leave it stranded between old fans and new, but if any outfit were built to relish the tensions caused by that it’s Franz Ferdinand.
