North Music Festival - Franz Ferdinand

This weekend, my city, the beautiful Porto, hosted again the North Music Festival.
The festival is located in the customs of Porto, on the riverside. The view is amazing and the line-up is usually very good. It's a band-oriented weekend festival and, we really need that. Today, most of the big stars of the festival are DJ's or solo artists that most of the music is previously recorded.
Anyway, the big name this year were Bush, Emir Kusturica, Bastille and Franz Ferdinand.

Kusturica was great, a big, funny and very enjoyable gypsy party and Bush were good also.

But the best show was, undoubtedly, Franz Ferdinand.
The Scottish band are, in my opinion, one of the best bands around since their very first album.
Their songs are amazing, full of energy, full of rock and, through the years they evolved, and got a bit more keyboard oriented (although they are a guitar-band). Actually, the fact that know they have more keyboards only works even better. The new songs are more complex, more deep, more electronic, with more sound and less empty spaces.

This was their first concert of the year and the second in Portugal with the new two members.
Well, what to say about the show? It was perfect, probably the best concert I saw since last time I saw Suede.
They played a career spanning setlist (with 7 songs from their debut album!). The hits were all there and sounding as fresh as ever. Take Me Out is always the high point of course. Jacqueline is a total banger. This Fire was the perfect ending of the show, with a lot of interaction between the band and the crowd. As Alex asked, we were Feeling The Love Go, as he asked us to, on the song with the same name.
Then the set is always full of classics. Do You Want To and Ulysses are always super powerful.
The only thing I really didn't like was the end they shorted up the song Always Ascending. It's one of my favourites from the new album and it's a shame they didn't do a longer instrumental outro part. The same for Lucid Dreams, they performed a version of the song with a little different melody and cut off the electronic end.
Lazy Boy was, and is, an instant classic.
They even played Right Action for the first time in years and, played Black Tuesday, a totally new song, it was its live debut. Special.

From the performance, you could feel that the band feels good in Portugal. They are very welcome here, and, a lot of their songs play every night on the alternative pubs.

Franz are one of the best bands in world.In studio they continually record 5 stars albums and they are true monster on the stage.

And a quick note:
If you kinda like bands like FF, but you don't want to waste money on concerts that you think you won't know every song, just grab your money, and go! Concerts are almost always fun, and it's much better than to be sitting at home! GO TO GIGS!
 

Always Ascending By Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand are, in my opinion, one of the most interesting bands in the world today.
They released 3 super acclaimed albums, then, I think they lost a bit of media attention with "Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action" and then did the supergroup FFS with The Sparks, which kinda divided the fans and the critics (and Alex Kapranos also formed BNQT).
With Always Ascending we can see the band, again (and again and again) trying to develop their sound and trying to make something fresh and new, and that's something we should really praise. It would be easy for them to do a new "Take Me Out" with a frontal indie-rock sound, but the band
really wants to get further and achieve new sonorities.
Always Ascending is, basically a mature indie/rock/electronic record.
If I were in a band, I would select the best song of the album (excluding long melancholic emotional or experimental songs) as the first single. I do think that big part of the artists do it, and Franz Ferdinand selected the title-song of the album as their opening and as first single and I understand why. It is the best song of the album. An electronic, dreamy song about viewing life as a Shepard Tone, always directly facing our path, and moving forward, and it is what the band is always doing, renovating their sound with amazing songs, without forgetting their own style. Always Ascending is a very complex song with lot of different parts but complex as the album is, so it's its right representation.
The second song, Lazy Boy is a danceable song, with a catchy bass riff, and a direct guitar chorus. Again, Kapranos likes to write about simple things in life, without getting too much poetic about the subjects. The songs is not about how love will change your life, or how war screws up the world, it's only about a lazy boy that doesn't like to get out of the bed, and loves his girlfriend. Simple, direct and smart. Franz Ferdinand's lyrics has always been much more practical than most of the bands. Something like a modern Jarvis Cocker poem, it describes the world has it is, without a story-line.
Then we have Paper Cages, a song that, at the beginning I didn't like that much, but now I think it is one of the best from the album. Catchy and melodic. It's something that Metronomy could have written during their most inspiring moments (far superior, but you get the point).
Finally is what I describe like a normal song of the album. Not the best, not the worst, just a nice song that fills good in the album. A song, probably about social integration.
The Academy Award is my least favourite song. It looks like an American ballad, like a modern western/Scottish song.
Track number 6 is Lois Lane. The song, with the name of the partner of Superman, sonorously, really reminds me of the 80's. I think it has a lot of inspiring from the instrumental song of Depeche Mode "Nothing To Fear" from their 1982 album "A Broken Frame". The riff of the chorus, and the middle keyboard solo really seems taken from there. Nothing against, I love Depeche Mode, and actually in a lot of moments from this album you can feel their influence.
Huck And Jim is a strange song. The intro of the song is great but then you get into dark areas. The pre-chorus is like a rap/reggae sound that, really doesn't fit well with Franz Ferdinand. I said that The Academy Awards was the lowest moment of the album, but I'm reconsidering now that this song might be worse. It's not bad, it's only not as good as the other songs.
Gimpse Of Love is another 80's renovated song. Catchy, funny, with a nice keyboard line, nice backing choruses. I very decent song.
The second single from the album was Feel The Love Go. Again, with Always Ascending it is the most electronic/industrial song. Hard, aggressive and addicted. The song is very intense and has (as Always Ascending) nice "lalala" creepy backing vocals, that really helps you to memorise the song. A hit song, without any doubt.   
The last song is, as typical, a beautiful ballad. Slow, Don't Kill Me Slow is a electronic ballad, very sweet and very (emotionally) moving. You could say it's a sad song that you can happily dance to it. Also, the outro is very dreamy and very travelling. After 9 aggressive electronic indie rock songs, this is the perfect song for you to make peace with the album. One of my favourite songs. Last week I was listen to it every single morning on the way to work.

Resuming, I cannot place Always Ascending in a rank in Franz Ferdinad's career. The album is, undoubtedly, a step forward from their work, but it goes along their career, it's nothing revolutionary. The band's line up changed from their last work to this one, but, honestly, you cannot feel that on their sound, which says that the new members adaptation was very easy and natural, and the band could keep their identity exactly as it was.
I love this band, and I think that, not only they are one of the best performs of today's music but also they are one of the most creative bands around. They should be really on the top, which they are not, and it's a pity. If you have the opportunity you should see them live. 

Always Ascending

Franz Ferdinand have released a new single and announced a new album.

The album has the same name as the presentation song "Always Ascending".

This is the first album of the band after they teamed up with Sparks to form FFS.

Also, it's the first album without Nick McCarthy, the musician left the band last year. To replace him, FF hired a new guitarist Dino Bardot and a keyboardist Julian Corrie.

The new single is a lot more electronic and dreamy than the previous works. I really like it.

Actually the band is always getting a step further in electronic music. They started with a indie/rock guitar oriented sound and through every album they get a little bit more danceable and electronic (Tonight was their climax for me).

So, let's wait to see, but there's a great new indie electronic song around!

The new album is coming on the 9th of February. It's a long wait but we're always ascending.

 

The Ultimate Band

On last week, NME made several interviews to several artists asking them witch artists would they pick for the Ultimate Band. One of them was Brett Anderson from Suede and you can see in the picture is choices. I decided to make the same exercise and choose my super group (I'll only choose one person per band, otherwise we could have many Suede members):

Vocals: Patrick Duff (Strangelove)

With artists like Brett Anderson, Dave Gahan, Morrissey or Jeff Buckley it was really complicated to decide who should be on the band as main vocals. Well, Patrick Duff, during Strangelove, was like an animal in terms of singing. He was a completely passionate guy with a non stop energy. His lyrics are very deep. On his solo career he is more mature and soft but with magical melodies and lyrics. He would be the best option for this place.

Guitars: Richard Oakes (Suede, Artmagic)

Oakes is my guitar hero. For all that he represents. He entered Suede with 17 years old and was, in my opinion, the greatest responsible in Suede biggest come back in 1996 with my all time favourite album Coming Up. Butler left Suede and no one in the press believed that they could come back to the spotlight but, with songs like Beautiful Ones, Trash or Filmstar they did it, and came back even better than they were before. Richard is a natural talented guitarist that can make millions of catchy and beautiful riffs. During last years he was gone but he came back with Artmagic and made an excellent album full of nice guitars and beautiful keyboards. 

Bass: Paul McCartney (The Beatles, Wings)

Paul McCartney is a living legend. The work he made on Beatles, Wings and on his solo albums are simply amazing and they are the best tunes ever. The Beatles were and still are the most influential band of all time and McCartney was the big brain behind it. The medley on Abbey Road or the first classic Beatles songs, passing thought his amazing solo album Ram or Band On The Run with the wings are little examples of a complete genius. His way of playing bass was incredible too. Very rhythmic, very enjoyable, very natural. Songs like Come Together or Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da have great bass lines. And of course he could borrow his giant creativity in the other instruments to all of the other band members (as we can see on his first solo album where he plays all the instruments)

Keyboards: Martin L. Gore (Depeche Mode)

Martin Gore is the synthesizer master. He was the main brain over Depeche Mode's 80's career and the responsible in their fantastic change of sound during Violator, Songs Of Faith And Devotion and Ultra. Although nowadays he plays more guitar than Keyboards in live gigs he still does it on studio (during last album he had an "obsessions" of buying a lot of keyboards from Ebay and made a huge collection). He is a really creative musician always exploring samples and new songs and, in my opinion is that what I would like to see in a keyboard player. As an example of his abilities in synthesizers I could remember songs like Walking In My Shoes, It's No Good or In Your Room (album version, is a complete climax).

Drums: Paul Thomson (Franz Ferdinand)

There are so much typical drum players that could make this list, like Dave Grohl or several hard rock guys but what I look in drum players is not for them to be protagonists or for them to try to evidence from the band. I look for them to really fit well on the rest of the band and I think Paul Thomson has the perfect style for that. When I listen to Franz Ferdinand, the drum sounds is really characteristic, and it is always in the right position with the right changes between verses and chorus and solos. As for examples, the classic Take Me Out is marvellous or the super great live version of Outsiders is brilliant too. I saw them live 2 times in the last years and was completely amazed by their great liver performance.

Band Name: Strange Sound