You Could Have It So Much Better – Franz Ferdinand

Sometime around April of 2004 I began to find delight in listening to the radio again. Where once my ears were assaulted by racking vibrations, which ate away at your ear’s inner workings, there now was the occasional trumpeting of angels. Perhaps the real events were only slightly akin to those described above. One of the contributing artists to this occurance was these guys. With their debut album, Franz Ferdinand made their mark on 2004 with a fresh, yet very remiscent of passed times sound that delighted many a listener. Only about a year and a half later the band has released a second album in a short but not overly quick amount of time.

‘You Could Have It So Much Better’ comes off as very bland with the first listen, containing a much lower percentage of rump-shaking funk beats then the first album, yet their style and skill are not lost. Upon repeat listening, the more subtle variations of the tracks become more apparent. With a few of the songs varying from what can be named the ‘Franz’ sound, the cd definitely picks up dramatically toward the middle and later tracks as the entire range of experimentation is presented. Never to stray too far from what they know, the band has begun to widen their range of songs from funk to classic in providing a very ecclectic yet consistent and coherent whole.

While not presenting excellent material, this new cd seems to present a better variation in music then the first, it just happens that the type of music from their debut album is exactly the kind of music that I love. The band members certainly continue to display their talents, with very enjoyable guitar and drums performances, the lead singer displays extreme aptitude for making repetition and almost chantish lyrics enjoyable and pleasant to listen to. The primary issue with this album would be that many of the songs are shorter then they often seem to be, but the better tracks are well placed throughout the work so that it becomes an enjoyable cd to listen to the entire way through without the need to skip certain songs.

Grade: B

-Danny