August 6, 2003

Franz Ferdinand : London Covent Garden Africa Centre

German/Glaswegian fops' Weller-baiting indie-gloom

With the garage rock revival on the wane, what we need is something a little, well, arty. Something to really piss off those Campaign For Real Rock-types who prop up bars up and down the country and whine on and on about ‘proper’ music. Those curmudgeons are armed with a crushing earnestness that’ll make you weep.

Sure, there’s signs that it’s changing, but these shoots of arch smartness in the form of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Interpol have been stateside. Enter Glasgow’s Franz Ferdinand. Pretentious name. Suits. Silent movies projected onto a backdrop. God, this lot are Noel and Kelly’s worst nightmare.

But, of course, posing is only a small aspect of what Franz do. Tonight they’re raiding the music playroom for some flattering stuttering guitar riffs that’d make Interpol gambol with delight while Alex and Nick tart it up with utterly mannered vocals. However, they always making sure that there’s a princely post punk tune to overshadow the masquerade. God, they’ve even got the nous on ‘Shopping For Blood’ to splice together the DNA of Fall and the drumming of Adam And The Ants. Not to mention the sense to look a 1,000 times prettier than both.

Forthcoming single ‘Darts Of Pleasure’ is inevitably the highlight: a vaudevillian confection of eyebrow-raised danceability that’d make you frug your legs down to the knees. Franz Ferdinand: set to annoy a dullard near you very soon.

Anthony Thornton