Phoenix - French popsters on the razor edge of making an enjoyable, catch-all record, but failing in the efforts of studio production to steer the group’s creative energy towards radio appeal. “Alphabetical” is too smooth, rhythms and handclaps too digitalised, and the velvet soft jazz-pop vocals a dime a dozen. The lyrics are disturbing - maybe it’s because they’re French and don’t grasp a command of the English language to the same extent as a native speaker might be expected to, but I suspect the problem lies in a deeper, darker, less forgivable place. Frighteningly, even the radio material loses direction after the second track - the rest of the songs, almost without exception, are just plain bland or with some grain of potential, but damned to oblivion because of the maximalistic studio efforts to make every single track equal in beat and feel (for example, “Victim of the Crime” opens promisingy with a sort of Commodore 64 synth ditty only to suffer the death of ‘hit appeal’, then comes through on a 30 second wave of acceptably frantic drumming - but alas, too little, too late!).

I seriously suspect Phoenix’s popularity with even semi-cultured crowds is the product of a kind of music critic jingoism, where writers and DJs take part in a circular jerk frenzy, scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours favour-doing club of spiralling bad taste passed off as acceptable artistic produce. This is a record I have no problem condemning to a crashing death on the sharp rocks of the hopefully inevitable reject bin.

Year Released: 2004
Label: Astralwerks
Related Link: Phoenix Official Site
Date Reviewed: 2004-09-19
Author: Andreas