Brightest Young Things

Volume please: Phoenix has always produced catchy little tunes, crispy and salty sweet like the thin little French fries that they are. What they failed to do, was have it happen over the course of a full album. Never lacking in singles, they would call out to me from the radio or indie dance floor and trick me into buying their discs, (devious franchies!!!) only to find that I really only wanted to hear two songs incessantly on repeat, until I burned out on them days later, never to return. The signs of turning this difficult corner were apparent on “It’s Never Been Like That” but it wasn’t until some new-found focus came into the band via frontman Thomas Mars producing a child (that is sure to have impeccably messy hair) with the one and only Sofia Coppola, that they turned on the overdrive.

I don’t know if it was the life-change or the need to carve out their time more judiciously that led to the transformation, but whatever it was it sure as hell did the trick! Leading off the cheekily named “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” with the one two power punch of “Lisztomania” and “1901,” I had instant doubts.  Was this a final admission of the lay of the land and they just gave in and front-loaded the disc for the listeners? The songs are so in your face with their pop pleasures (Phoenix has never had a ton of depth to their aural experience) that they cause a slow smile to crease across my jaded face. This is what they do best as a euro new wave blast but here they have finally mastered the art of being a grit free Strokes (you know, a precious French version) and that is not a bad thing at all should you not have a fancy boy bias. Its New Romantic Garage Wave and it sounds pretty sweet.

Instantly, I notice that the band has done away with their previous inclination to come up with a decent melody and then call it a day on said song. “Lisztomania” is still all up front with the production, but the melodies sweep and swirl and the insanely simple playing is crisp and composed with multiple dynamic moments. “1901” keeps the skinny jeans and short-haired girls headed to the dancefloor and showcases some of the finest clean guitar and drum sounds going today, which allow for the clipped fuzz that punctures it to make an enormous impact.

The truly astonishing part is that, while those two songs are obviously singles, the tracks that follow show little in the way of letting off the creative throttle. “Fences” has a cool disco swing. “Lasso” dances on those bright drums and uses Mars habit of repeating lines to nice effect. “Rome” is all slow build as “Countdown” returns the thump and “Girlfriend” rides some playful keyboard riffs and “Armistice” closes out the perfect 10 with a nervy jitter. The overall effect is a breezy spring listen that basically requires that you roll the windows down and feel the rush of air kissing your face as you just know that the night is only going to improve upon the day.

What we’ve run through so far is basically the ultimate version of what Phoenix already does well - but what I have skipped over is the true difference-maker. The astonishingly successful Tangerine Dream intro into drone that is “Love Like A Sunset Part 1” merging with the pulsing two-fingered keyboard riff and measured chords of “Love Like A Sunset Part 2.” It’s simple, yet lovely, and makes a bid for a band with a lot to offer in the future.

Poptastic – we get it. But what does it look like? The cover uses a repeated bomb shape created by playful illustrator Jody Barton and sets it in an abstract pink sky (made more obvious with clouds on the back tray and inside of the booklet.) The old is new freshness of the 60’s inspired palette is interesting and even though the entire thing is not executed very well, it gives off a nice feeling – which is really saying something considering the typography of Marc Alary (of Vocabulary, his design/illustration firm) is horrific. The lack of a proper ligature between the “l” and “f” in “Wolfgang” is enough to keep me up at night! Don’t even get me started about the lack of kerning (controlling the space between individual letters.) Alary has an eye for strong imagery but his type has been an issue for me in several pieces, but never to this extent. I see that the overall layout (or “artwork” as it is credited) is by guitarist Laurent Brancowitz and things begin to make a little more sense. Brancowitz has always had good intentions in his designs for the band’s records but not the skills to pull them off. His use of Shiochi Kajino’s harmless band shot ion the interior is ruined by not using the proper halftone to allow the right amount of detail to show up.

It quickly becomes a case of being able to see that Brancowitz has decent taste in design, but that leaves the band’s inability to then in turn HIRE a talented firm even more of a headscratcher. Even when he assembles a little piece here and there from people who have a decent body of work it all goes haywire. Just like the beautiful guitar tones the group has worked a decade to finally achieve – having something in your head and getting it to actually materialize in front of you - are two very different things.

To use a device like giving each track it’s own typographic solution, you really need to be inventive and still link it into an overlaying concept. Here we only get a smattering of awkward font choices to make that distinction. It’s not an epic fail but yields nothing resembling success either. The simple black and white running of the lyrics on the interior is fine enough (although they have never been a band whose songs “read” terribly well, highlighting Mars with his sly use of repetition to create interest all the more.) What bothers me is a production issue as the type looks like it has been ripped at a lower resolution as it is definitely not a build, et has an annoying jagged nature to each character. I can only imagine the culprit, but there is the outside chance that this could be caused by submitting the final art as images rather than postscript fonts (really getting down to brass tacks now, aren’t we?) If that were the case, it would be criminal that the band has entrusted the design portion to someone lacking some of the very basic skills needed to get something on press. I can’t be sure, but Brancowitz’s design work is smothered in the previously mentioned good intentions – but always with poor results.

The shame is that critics could have said the same thing about the band in the past and now that they have decidedly cast any doubters aside, the rest of the package hasn’t quite caught up.

For those keeping score at home: Music 7.5 Design 5.5

John Foster owns his very own design firm, Bad People Good Things and is the author of For Sale: Over 200 Innovative Solutions in Packaging Design (HOW), New Masters of Poster Design (Rockport), Maximum Page Design (HOW) as well as an upcoming collection of handmade graphics entitled Dirty Fingernails for Rockport and a monograph on Jeff Kleinsmith for Sub Pop Records.