Franz Ferdinand: "Ulysses"

Before the internet hype machine really picked up speed it was easy to get ahold of something great but live in a weird bubble of non-affirmation for months. I remember downloading “Hey Ya!” long before it hit radio, but nobody believed me that it was any good until the traditional outlets picked it up. “Take Me Out” was even weirder, stuck on my ancient Toshiba without context for over a year, probably downloaded off of Kazaa, and then inexplicably the jocks started dancing to it at stupid high school parties.

It was probably that bizarrely sudden American cultural acceptance that weaned me and many another indie kid off the Franzy stuff—I don’t remember ever even thinking about their second album and I played the hell out of the first one. Yet here they are, back again, and I’m almost getting the weird chills I got in high school when they changed the tempo halfway through “Take Me Out.” What really sets them apart from the other “jittery post-punk revival” (god never let me say that without quotes) bands in Britain is how they take it easy. Every part is completely in control, confident that a beat can burn up the dancefloor without steamrolling it, that maybe the rhythm section should just do its own thing for a while without covering up inadequacies with frilly riffs.

They still succumb a little bit to that big-chorus thing that every British band from Bloc Party to Morrissey is completely addicted to these days, but after the slow-burn verses it’s not so big a deal. Fuck, I’m just realizing it: this band is actually really good. Sometimes it takes three albums and some slept-on shit to make it clear to fairweather scumbags like me that you know how to write a song and you’re going to rock it every time out.