Franz Ferdinand

For their blasphemously good sophomore album, the Scottish art/disco-poppers refrain from singing about the horrors of fame and the constant stream of women (or lack thereof), and continue exploring the possibilities within the pop format. All throughout, shambling art-school posturing gives way to dancefloor fillers.

"Do You Want To" -- the first single from the second album by punk-pop Scots Franz
Ferdinand -- starts the same way all great rock & roll dance-party 45s of the mid-Sixties did:
in mono. For the first eighteen seconds, the entire band is, if you're listening with
headphones, crammed into the center of your cranium: the cutting unison guitars of Alex
Kapranos and Nick McCarthy; the interlocked swagger of bassist Bob Hardy and... More >

They've gotten unmistakably louder and unmistakably gayer--or perhaps I mean, hate the term, more metrosexual, given that the most affecting song here is a plea to a Brooklyn girl to rush her ass to Scotland. Small shows of force are all this ex-alt unit needs to achieve the meaning curmudgeons demand of rudderless guitar bands. They define themselves when they declare--not howl, not brag, declare--"I'm evil and a heathen." Firmly secular on their shaky pop pinnacle, they're a beacon. (Grade - A-)