The Human Fear by Franz Ferdinand review: 'still giving the fans what they want'

On their latest album The Human Fear, Franz Ferdinand manage to find new ways of giving their audacious sound a shake while still giving the fans what they want, writes Fiona Shepherd

Franz Ferdinand | Fiona Torres

Franz Ferdinand: The Human Fear (Domino) ★★★★

Songhoy Blues: Héritage (Transgressive Records) ★★★★

Bridget Hayden and the Apparitions: Cold Blows the Rain (Basin Rock) ★★★★

New year, new music, and from Franz Ferdinand no less, releasing their first album since the hypnotic Always Ascending in 2018. While guitarist Dino Bardot has been in the line-up for seven years, The Human Fear marks his first album recording with the band and though it might feel like drummer Audrey Tate has practically fused with her kit through all the post-pandemic touring, this is her first Franz record too.

Keyboard player Julian Corrie is the longest standing of the “new” kids and takes a songwriting role alongside founder members Alex Kapranos and Bob Hardy and the whole shebang sounds quintessentially Franz from the title of the first single Audacious to the strutting familiarity of Night Or Day, a song you could swear you had heard before.

This is the genius of Franz Ferdinand – giving the people what they want and recognise while finessing new ways to give their, yes, audacious sound a shake. Melody and hooks are key throughout, also bounce, swagger, wit and a surfeit of musical ideas all finding their place without sounding crowded.

“Here we go with riff one,” announces Kapranos at the top of the recording and the band are straight off and running into Audacious, with Kapranos going soft on verses, before making big shapes in the Sixties pop stomp chorus. The seductive Franz strain of melancholy is applied to Everydaydreamer, while their appointment with The Doctor may be brief and urgent but it clings to the catheter as Kapranos admits “I have become accustomed to this level of attention”.

The confessional lyrics of gonzo disco track Hooked gives the album its title before the pace drops yet the rhythm remains on Build It Up, embellished with twanging gothic guitar.

The second half of The Human Fear pushes further into new territory. The gauzy piano of intriguing croon Tell Me I Should Stay becomes ever more melodramatic as the tremulous strings swell to Scott Walker-meets-Bay City Rollers effect, while Kapranos mines his Greek family history for the throwback East European dinner dance party soundtracks of Cats and Black Eyelashes. Bar Lonely is indie new wave executed with sheer verve and the band even dice with some distinctly proggy melodic progressions on album closer The Birds, a track which seems destined to spice up future Franz live sets.

Songhoy Blues | Kiss Diouara

Malian rock band Songhoy Blues’ fourth album takes them in a more traditional and acoustic direction, paying tribute to the culture and life of the Songhoy people in the company of special guests including Rokia Koné, while adding Senufo xylophone and resonant steel guitar to their usual repertoire of guitar, kora and calabash percussion.

Héritage feature hymns for the tormented Sahel region and laments for exploited children and the river environment on which the Songhoy people rely as well as compositions which deal with the perils of polygamy or capture the bustle of the local shops – the latter, Boutiki, features a rare outing of their signature burnished electric guitar sound.

The band covers songs by the late Ibrahim Dicko and Orchestre Kanaga de Mopti’s Toukambela as well as revisiting their own Gambary in soulful, pastoral, psychedelic style, while Norou is their thoughtful take on the ain’t-nothing-going-on-but-the-rent pressures of relationships.

Experimental folklorist Bridget Hayden also offers a twist on the traditional on her latest album, Cold Blows the Rain, covering and improvising on eight folk standards from Britian, Ireland and the US, including immortal classics She Moved Through the Fayre, a mesmeric Blackwater Side and an epic closing reading of The Unquiet Grave with wheezing, droning gothic accompaniment from Sam McLoughlin and Dan Bridgewood-Hill aka the suitably spectral Apparitions.

CLASSICAL

Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphonie (Deutsche Grammophon) ★★★★

You’d expect something special from the orchestra that, 75 years ago, gave the first ever performance of Messiaen’s ecstatic “song of love”, the Turangalîla-Symphonie. Sure enough, under Andris Nelsons the Boston Symphony Orchestra reveals its instinctive empathy for the music’s kaleidoscopic extravagance and glorious excess; its exploration of the extremes of human existence ranging from the wildly delirious Joie du Sang des Étoiles to the scented stillness of the Jardin du Sommeil d’Amour; and the galactic electronic swooping of the Ondes Martenot (played by Cécile Lartigau). While there’s no lack of vigorous commitment in the Boston orchestra’s playing, there are less fulfilling moments where you feel Nelsons could have requested a more intense, resonating warmth. But he has a secret weapon - the magnetic presence of the phenomenal Yuja Wang on solo piano. Her vivid contributions, from delicately fragrant to blindingly virtuosic, are to die for. Ken Walton

FOLK

Alice Allen: Bass Culture – Live at Celtic Connections (Ardgowan Records) ★★★★

Following her fine collaborative album with fiddler Alastair Savage, Where the Good Ship Lands, cellist Alice Allen releases this recording of her Celtic Connections “New Voices” commission, performed with a sterling eight-piece band including string-playing associates Seonaid Aitken, Kristan Harvey, Patsy Reid and bassist Duncan Lyall. While decidedly contemporary and groove-driven (Signy Jakobsdottir on drums) this zesty, venturesome music and album title reflect Allen’s ongoing research into the bass lines that underpinned the 18th-century “golden age” of Scots fiddle music. The introduction is simply beautiful in its stillness; while the enigmatically titled Bootlicker opens with an ominous whistling of string harmonics before working up a dramatically beaty theme. Led by Allen’s jubilant cello, the compositions are hers, apart from a closing salute to the bass lines of that golden age, as William Marshall’s Strathbogie Toast receives a short, sharp shock. Jim Gilchrist