Cast your mind back (if you can, of course) to the early 00′s and the big indie boom of the time. Shortly after The Strokes kicked the hinges clean off the industry’s door and helped once again fuse guitars and dance floors, there was a feverish outbreak of riffs and pre-hipster fashion everywhere. This era was further accelerated when my beloved home country, the United Kingdom, cultivated its own post punk/new wave revival. In a short period of time, a number of bands pierced the public’s consciousness with their debut LPs, yet after their initial impact and despite good attempts and best intentions, most never really managed to return to their initial heights.
One of, if not THE best example of this, came in the form of Scottish art rockers Franz Ferdinand. Despite putting out a couple of good-to-decent efforts post 2004, the four-piece have never quite captured the magic of their self-titled debut. Four years have passed since their last record (Tonight: Franz Ferdinand), and the band has returned revitalized. Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Actions still doesn’t see them climb back to their peak, but it’s certainly an album with legs, and those legs are built for dancing.
Album number four comes out swinging with its partially self-titled track, “Right Action”, and “Evil Eye”, both of which quickly act as a reminder that, though you may not have been fully aware of it, the band’s presence has been missed. The usual suspects of wirey guitars, sharp, angular riffs and crisp percussion are back in the band’s arsenal, but they’ve also returned with deeper grooves of a more funkadelic nature, featuring an essence of 60′s pop lying underneath their pointed compositions. Although these little tweaks drop a pinch of something different into Franz Ferdinand’s sound, they’re still the band they always were, only a little more chiseled and concise. As the latter is something I feel has been missing from their last two records, it’s good to see that their hibernation has helped them tighten their execution and reorganize themselves.
The record does begin to lose a little steam and momentum towards its closing stages, but if you were projecting that much danceable energy, you’d be lagging a little towards the end too. Rough edges and dipping energy levels aside, Right Actions… is a pretty infectious standalone album and a triumphant return from one of Britain’s most fun-loving, post-millenium exports!
