Gradually Mars’ melodies take a back seat, as they settle into a pleasant but less sharply lit groove. Of course it wouldn’t be a Phoenix album if it didn’t sag a bit in the second act. They then chase that with ‘Part 2’, which translates as ‘Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space And It’s Really Nice’.
As a sign of confidence/foolishness/Gallic perversity they hammer home this banging opening trilogy with five minutes of delicate instrumental – ‘Love Like A Sunset Part 1’ – Sigur Ros’s ‘( )’ with less between the brackets. It is also ridiculously front-loaded: the tap-tappity rhythms of ‘Lisztomania’, then ‘1901’ and its rave-like stop-go guitars, followed by the classic Phoenix of ‘Fences’, containing a future-funk breakdown Jamiroquai would cut off his penis to own. The real star of the show isn’t the often-bloodless figure of Thomas Mars, it’s the brilliantly detailed production, centred around the dovetailing drum and guitar chops, best heard via headphones for the full stroboscopic effect.
‘Wolfgang Amadeus…’ achieves an optimal blend of interlocking rhythms adapted from ‘Is This It’’s undying template, and their more long-standing soft rock influences. But in its infatuation with The Strokes, it did at least lay the groundwork for what we’ve got here. 2006’s ‘It’s Never Been Like That’ was a case in point – often drowning in its own stylised inertia. Long beloved of a hardcore of tastemaking types like Sofia Coppola and Hedi Slimane, their recorded output hasn’t always lived up to a fistful of great singles. Given the fevered way the blogs seized on ‘1901’, there’s now even talk of an ‘Elbow Moment’ of real mainstreaming. If Brian Eno wanted to do ‘Music For Airports Two’, he’d just tape a Phoenix album with a bunch of gate announcements over it and spend the time he saved thinking up more policy proposals for the Lib Dems.Īnyway, ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’… in case the title didn’t give it away, the French faux-funkers’ fourth is intended to be their Pompidou Centre – taking their formula to a yes-the-pipes-are-on-the-bloody-outside level of showmanship.
Emotionally neutral but texturally rich – they’re the sound of Richard Rogers’ utopian future. Conversely, Phoenix are what architects should dance to. It’s often said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
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