No, you're not seeing things. This is a new album release from FRANZ FERDINAND and, yes, it does come merely a couple of months from their third LP, 'Tonight'. BUT – and this is important - it's not really a new album, merely a 'companion' piece: a 'Dub' album, if you will.
We're on familiar enough ground in that respect. Since the early '70s, 'Dub' albums featuring instrumental 'Versions' of completed tracks have been commonplace in Reggae and gradually Western musicians have incorporated elements of this into their work. The Clash famously copped huge amounts of flak for their Mikey Dread-helmed dubwise experiments circa the unfairly-derided 'Sandinista' while Franz's Glaswegian compadres Primal Scream put out a similar dub set called 'Echo Dek' to accompany their 'Vanishing Point' album circa 1997.
So there are precedents for Franz Ferdinand's dub outing 'Blood', though whether it will ever be viewed as anything other than an intriguing diversion – and essentially one for the fans – is debatable. That doesn't mean it's worthless by any means, though. Indeed, taken as its' own entity, 'Blood' is an interesting spacier flip side to the more familiar public face of Alex Kapranos's boys.
It's probably the right time for Franz to take the plunge if they were going to do this at all. A couple of the tracks on 'Tonight' suggested dense '70s Dub Reggae was the current listening of choice within the Franz camp, while the album's producer Rich Costey has previously served an apprenticeship with South London's Mad Professor: a man known for this dubwise skills on version re-makes of Massive Attack's 'Protection' and Ruts DC'S seminal 'Rhythm Collision'.
Thus,it's probably inevitable that 'Blood' is at its' most enjoyable when Costey emphasises the contributions of rhythm section Bob Hardy and Paul Thomson and gets all King Tubby on our ass, as he does on the sublime final KO of 'Feel The Envy' (originally 'Send Him Away') and the deceptively mellow and dream-like 'Be Afraid' (formerly 'Dream Again') where Hardy's subterranean bass goes the whole Jah Wobble, Kapranos' voice floats around like the ghost at the feast and all that's missing is the late Augustus Pablo's majestic melodica.
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Tracks like 'Turn It On' and 'Twilight Omens' receive similar demolition and remoulding jobs. 'If I Can't Have You Then Nobody Can' is the dubwise 'Turn It On' and it finds a nocturnal, Keith Hudson-style bass and drums workout getting pitted against a wash of noxious synth and is jarringly engaging. 'Twilight Omens', meanwhile, becomes 'Backwards on My Face' and its' vocoder weirdness suggests a shape-shifting Super Furry Animals.
Admittedly, some of it doesn't fare so well. 'Feel The Pressure' (formerly 'What She Came For') and the insistent, Krautrock-influenced 'Die On The Floor' (originally 'Can't Stop Feeling') are more like standard dance remixes than dub in my book, while 'The Vaguest of Feeling' (formerly 'Live Alone') features Euro-centric keyboards which are more Ultravox than U-Roy, even if the track itself has an eerie presence that gradually beckons you in.
Ultimately, 'Blood' is primarily one for the faithful. Its' experimentalism will do Franz's street cred no harm and its' best moments ought to be embraced for what they are rather than what they were. In the wider scheme of all things Franz Ferdinand, though, it'll probably be viewed as something of a curate's egg in time.
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