Domino Vinyl & CDs

Review: Franz Ferdinand made a perfect debut album. The Glasgow indie rockers could have called it a day way back then and we'd still be listening to them now. But somehow they've retained their magic and are now onto their sixth studio album and 20th year as a band. Alex Kapranos and co. teamed up with the same producer as they had for their fourth album, Right Words, Right Action (Mark Ralph) and that spawned some absolute bangers, so expectations are high for this. Despite having to adjust to new members in the group - it's the first album to feature drummer Audrey Tait and guitarist Dino Bardot - they've come up with the goods on the singles. 'Night Or Day' has the contagious Franz Ferdinand groove that gets crowds bouncing at festivals. And 'Audacious' is perfect for the holiday season - majestic, lush and full of galvanising lyrical sentiments that can't help but unite people. Surely, this album will go to number one.

Review: Supergroups that look perfect on paper can often misfire in practice, which makes it both a relief and a revelation that this meeting of minds between the Glaswegian dance-pop freaks and the legendary glam progenitors hits the spot so spectacularly. With both acts playing to their strengths, and sharing ideas in effusive fashion, FFS is a collection of indelible songs that never let their artful campery and arch histrionics triumph over melody and fresh invention. As over the top in its flamboyance as one would expect this collaboration to be, this inspired collision of circumstances has more than enough substance to match its style.

Review: Franz Ferdinand round up 20 of their greatest ever hits on Hits To The Head, presented on gold vinyl and with a 16 page booklet featuring liner notes by JD Beauvallet plus lyrics and new and exclusive photos. 18 of the tunes you will be well familiar with , but two of them are brand new cuts just for this project. They are 'Billy Goodbye' and 'Curious' which has been co-produced by Alex Kapranos, Julian Corrie and Stuart Price. Elsewhere the big riffing, festival pleasing joys of 'Do You Want To' and 'Take Me Out' still hit the right spot.

Review: Scottish indie stalwarts Franz Ferdinand thrust onto the scene back in 2004 seeking to antidote the then bad-boy aesthetic of groups like The Libertines with smart, suave 'music to dance to'. Fourteen years on and following a slight lineup change, their objective doesn't appear to have changed with their fifth album 'Always Ascending'. Produced by Philippe Zdar of famed Parisian duo Cassius - it's a slick, tight record that's doused in their trademark off-kilter panache. Over forty energetic minutes, there's a lot to dig into; the ballad 'The Academy Award' and art-pop oddball 'Huck & Jim' let Alex Kapranos' dry wit come to the fore, the infectious funk-channeling chorus on 'Finally' sounds like a dip into 60's pop, while 'Feel The Love Go' is vintage Franz Ferdinand. 'Always Ascending' sees Franz Ferdinand full of charm, reinvigorated, and perfectly comfortable in no longer needing to prove anything.

Review: "I think we all have fears within us and fears that we confront in our life at different times ... and how we react to those fears is how we earn who we really are," Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos told Apple Music's Hanuman Welch in an interview about The Humans of Fear, its catalysts and sources of inspiration. Sonically, this is typically bombastic and almost relentlessly upbeat, following in the footsteps of the Glasgow group's established sound. Which has, of course, changed over the years. So while we once had a thoroughbred indie rock band named after a racehorse and Archduke Ferdinand, over the last decade or two they have evolved into a far more electronic and synth-heavy outfit. On The Humans, Ferdinand seem to have measured the distance betwixt the two with more accuracy than ever, sticking their flag in the surface of a perfectly realised middle ground.