Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 03/10/05
Label: Domino

With "Take Me Out", Franz Ferdinand constructed perhaps the most complex metaphor ever attempted in popular song. Here we were offered the image of two romantic hopefuls as snipers with guns trained on one another, each pleading with the other to "take me out", the sting of rejection being preferable to the agony of not knowing what happens next. When you consider the double meaning of the phrase "take me out", it becomes clear that we're in the presence of genius. Kapranos should still be sat on a divan somewhere, smoking a fat cigar.

Instead, he's managed to whip up an even better pop single. Not only does "Do You Want To" pioneer an entire new genre - we're calling it 'big-band art-rock' - but its subject matter comes as a delightful shock. Bands that achieve overnight success are supposed to come back with an exhausted whinge about the pressures of fame. Instead, Kapranos blindsides us with a wry, zippy vignette about being propositioned at a party. This, clearly, is a man we can work with.

"Do You Want To" may be the centrepiece of "You Could Have It So Much Better", but much of it is on a par. As a follow-up to "Franz Ferdinand", it's perfect. Despite the quick gestation, it's actually better than the successful debut - a rare enough occurrence - and the direction in which they've pushed things is equally surprising. This is a more energetic record; it's generally faster; its lyrics are more venomous, but alive with wit and imagination; it's cockier, but with a hunger to prove itself.

Far from searching their souls in lonely hotel rooms, Franz Ferdinand have cast a desultory gaze over the neo-Britpop movement they helped inspire, and decided to teach it a lesson. There is not a shred of humility in that album title. Evidence of the confidence surging through this band's veins is everywhere, even in the song titles: "I'm Your Villain", "You're the Reason I'm Leaving", "Well That Was Easy".

They still sound like Talking Heads a lot of the time, but poppier and more emotionally available. On the couple of occasions they drop the pace, as on "Eleanor, Put Your Boots On" and the Byrds-like, Nick McCarthy-sung "Fade Together", they do so more adroitly than on their debut. But what's most striking is their ability to fuse intellectual and visceral power, which they do to perfection on the title track.

Oasis, who boast about not reading books, were once hailed as Britain's most exciting rock'n'roll band. Now that title belongs to a band whose singer writes a food column for The Guardian. Scoff all you like: this is progress. You could have it so much better; and you are.

    by Niall O'Keeffe