K'Dawg's Music Korner

Welcome back! You’re currently tuned to KDWG Radio with your host K. This time I thought we take a look at a much (much) easier listen… but, but they’re French! Now let me start to relieve your fears… this isn’t a world music thing, like a real Frenchy band. No, this band sings in English and are basically a pop band. Now let’s continue.

French outfit, Phoenix very recently released their third album It’s Never Been Like That. Some of you may of heard of them as Triple J gave them a fairly decent spin back in 2000 with their debut album, United. The biggest song with the most overplays from this album, "Funky Squaredance." With catchy tunes to a lush 70’s Euro-disco and (close to a) porn movie guitar sound, they impressed me. It was no surprise to me that Phoenix started as support band for Air and had members from both Daft Punk and Cassius help them out with their debut. Also I had this band really drummed into me – we had one particular employee at Impact Records (rip) play the ba’jesus out of the first album… only to do the same in 2004 when their (a tad lack lustre) follow-up arrived. But Alphabetical still had that flourishing sweet crisp pop-rock very comparable to their first release (although now with a slight country feel).

Two years later the disco backbeat is replaced by an actual drummer and with guitar rifts that could be at home on a Strokes or, more importantly, a Smiths tune (i.e. "This Charming Man"). The lyrical content is as strong as ever with a sweet vocal styling telling a story now minus all the female backups and slicker than slick production from the previous releases. After the first strangely catchy song, one can get more comfortable remembering the Phoenix of old, just with an upbeat twin guitar driven feel that lasts the whole album. This album shows a band in evolution. They already had a rather distinctive sound built on layers of synth-elecltro and old disco, now that gives way to the guitars with a more acoustic pop sound – these styles merge seamlessly and the group moves on to cement their own chic. Can’t wait for the next one.

KKKK (A solid four Ks)