Franz Ferdinand 'Tonight' album

Franz Ferdinand is making good on its promise that their next album won't be "by the numbers." Which is to say it'll be all about the numbers; specifically bone circumference and density.

You read that right: the Scottish quartet just happened to have a human skeleton lying around the studio, so each member of the band made like Hamlet and did what anyone would do when staring down their own mortality:

"I remember we were working on a song called 'Kiss Me' and we wanted to have a real dry, percussive sound in the chorus," frontman Alex Kapranos said in a recent interview. "We had this skeleton in a box that just ended up sitting in the corner of the studio ... and decided to experiment with it ... We smacked the ribs together and we got this really weird, fucked-up kind of a sound that was wicked. I can't think of any records with human bones on it."

The new LP, called Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, is inspired by the "heavy dub sound of Jamaican reggae stars," though it remains to be seen where a calcified endoskeleton fits into that inspiration. The album is due on January 29th.

Throughout, the Scottish band lets its funky bass lines handle much of the heavy lifting, decorating them with vintage synth melodies straight out of the Genesis (opener "Ulysses") or Sparks ("Live Alone") playbooks.

Elsewhere, the band's cold grooves nod to "Wire" ("Turn it On"), "Can" ("Send him Away") and "Miss You"-era Rolling Stones ("Kiss Me," "What she Came For"), while "Dream Again" is a more subdued number with drum machine backing and closer "Katherine Kiss Me" trots out acoustic guitars.

Franz Ferdinand recorded the 12-track album at its own headquarters in Govan, Glasgow, and the London studio of producer Dan Carey.

"Tonight" follows 2005's "You Could Have it so Much Better," which has sold 378,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

Do you also would like to share your opinion? If so, please register or login here.

Details

Popular Songs

New Songs

Tracklisting

Franz Ferdinand - Tonight