My list of anxiously anticipated debut full-lengths just doubled in size; I've scratched Franz Ferdinand's name right under TV on the Radio's, folded it twice, and shoved it back into my desk drawer next to my weekly to-do-list and the old address book I've been meaning to fill up for ages. The Glasgow quartet may not yet shoulder the same weight of expectation garnered by early Strokes or Interpol EPs, but based on what I'm hearing here, I'm guessing Santa won't be missing their house come late December.
Given only five tracks to work with-- two of them being home demo recordings, and the latter of these an encore to the disc's first single and opening title track-- the band has as many viable future trajectories as it does sonic resemblances. "Darts of Pleasure" is a bombastically truncated nod to all things indie/electro/new wave. Strikingly Interpolian as they lunge in alongside a healthy drum clip, jagged guitar, and a hardboiled bassline Alex Kapranos' morose-chic vocals are coy but cool: "You are the devil that sells a line of dark fantastic passion." It's a line of modern-baroque recollection the band tightropes for the whole act. Synths filter in for the second verse before the song drops off to a quick-sting bass-and-drum interlude before swirling all its ingredients back in for an everyone-in-the-studio-we're-German singalong, "Ich heisse superfantastiche!" Outstanding.
"Van Tango" is a glam testament to why Franz Ferdinand were a perfect fit for sharing the stage with Hot Hot Heat and Interpol on recent tours, as it meshes the disparate elements and better parts of both acts into a stew of snappy jubilance; too content not to be cool and too cool to be content, it jangles its way through the peppiest of apathetic musing as it discusses the life of its nominal night-walking neo-vampire hipster. "Shopping for Blood" could well be the new post-Rocky Horror Picture Show party anthem-- sporting a sock-hop goth-gallop and a "Monster Mash" narrative, it's more glam than gore. On "Tell Her Tonight", the band lets a little Kinks/Beatles-meets-electro-indie slip out. However, I can only surmise that the reason for the inclusion of the demo version of "Darts of Pleasure" was to show that the band is not The Strokes, but could wear the costume for Halloween if they wished. Stripped of their razor sharp production, this is what's left. But by then it doesn't matter, I already had my pen out. Boys, get on your hype riot-gear, you'll be needing it.
