Alex Kapranos found it “liberating” to embrace Franz Ferdinand’s classic sound on their new album.
The 52-year-old singer – who, along with bassist Bob Hardy, is the only founder member left in the band – is proud of the fact ‘The Human Fear’, the group’s first studio album in seven years, is “unmistakably us” and admitted it “felt good” to take inspiration from his own back catalogue.
He told The Sun newspaper: “It’s good to sound like Franz Ferdinand — it is liberating and I feel comfortable with the identity of the band.
“Making this record, I was forced to go back and listen to what we had done before. And it felt good.
“Many of the artists we love always stay true to their identity like Nick Cave and PJ Harvey.
“And I love that, when you listen to ‘The Human Fear’, every song is unmistakably us.
“Starting this record, accepting that it’s good to sound like Franz was liberating, because we also go to places that are very different from previous Franz records and it is easier to do that when you’re comfortable with who you are.”
Alex went into recording the album with a “greatest hits mentality” after previously working on the group’s 2022 compilation ‘Hits To The Head’ and he’s delighted with the individual tracks.
He said: ” “’Hooked’ is a super-mean dance floor song, whereas ‘Tell Me I Should Stay’ is very, very different.
“It starts off with the only moments of solitude and peace on the record, then it goes into this huge uplifting Beach Boys/Mike Love moment.
“Making this record I still had a greatest hits mentality and so I wanted an album to work as whole, but every song be strong enough to work on its own as well.
“I wanted every song to be able to compete with everything we’d just done on ‘Hits To The Head’.”
And the ‘Take Me Out’ hitmaker believes the changes to the line-up, including new drummer Audrey Tait, and rhythm guitarist Dino Bardot and keyboard player Julian Corrie, who both joined in 2017, have made the group sound fresher.
He said: “’Night Or Day’, is a very Franz Ferdinand sounding song.
“There was a debate about which song should be the first single and ‘Audacious’ was great, but I would have been happy putting ‘Night Or Day’ out, too.
“The groove is super-transparent, but it’s led by the piano riff, which is Julian really coming into his own.
“It’s cool to take your identity and transform it into something that you’ve not done before.
“I don’t think we could have done that without Julian joining the band.”