The title isn’t up to the heights of I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master (2007) or Señor Smoke (2005). No matter. There is also nothing here the equal of the libido-destroying Danger! High Voltage or with the outrageous swagger of Gay Bar. No matter. Very little is.
What you get instead on this post-futurist Detroit rock band’s thirteenth album is plenty of trash, plenty of humour, plenty of tight-buttoned high lead vocals, plenty of throwbacks to the days of the 70s when pencil moustaches mostly belonged to Sparks’ Ron Meal. Blink, and much of How Dare You? could be a template for future Franz Ferdinand directions; less of the arch and more of the birch. There is plenty of adrenalin and neat asides, and lovingly crafted titles such as for the disco-fied Sex With Somebody and squelchy The Loveliest Man In Town.
It’s all quite marvellous, teeming with flash, trash, hidden treasure and secret pleasure, the way you know your momma would have wanted it. Flippant and macho – a devastating combination.
