For the most part, British indie-mania of the 00s involved a slew of sixth-form poets holding forth over amateurishly jerky guitars: the results were often simultaneously brilliant and deeply cringeworthy. Somehow, Franz Ferdinand managed to establish themselves as a tent pole of the scene while wholly bypassing the awkward young upstart vibe. Frontman Alex Kapranos was in his 30s when the band released their debut album, which combined sharp riffs with arch, arty posturing and lugubrious vocals. Kapranos and co were cooler than their contemporaries in both senses: their aesthetic was less messy and their lyrics less bracingly obvious, but they were also less sweatily relatable.
If Franz Ferdinand were the grownups back then, 20 years on they’re positively avuncular. The Human Fear – their sixth album, and first since 2018 – feels markedly middle-aged in tone. Despite opener Audacious kicking off with Kapranos muttering about the disintegration of reality over a pleasingly grainy riff, the song then slows into the kind of sweeping, plodding chorus you could imagine Take That crooning on a teatime chatshow. Other songs (Bar Lonely, Tell Me I Should Stay) channel 70s glam to pleasant but unremarkable ends, while a track called The Doctor – told from the perspective of a man unwilling to vacate his hospital bed (“I have nurses to talk to … and thermometers to hold”) – doesn’t exactly telegraph vitality. There are even a couple of actively eye-watering moments, such as Kapranos singing the praises of a new paramour over Hooked’s novelty EDM-style synths. It’s safe to say that two decades on from their heyday, Franz Ferdinand have finally lost their cool.
• The Human Fear is released on 10 January
